ArticlePsychiatry and clinical neurosciences2024
The association between levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor and comorbid depression in patients with cardiovascular disease: The Framingham Heart Study.
Article in Psychiatry and clinical neurosciences, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor in Acute Coronary Syndromes: Beyond Diagnosis Toward Biological Phenotyping and Risk Stratification.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Review
- BDNF mediates the heart-brain axis: implications for cardiovascular diseases and mental disorders.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2026Review
- Comorbidity Between Mood Disorders and Chronic Somatic Diseases, With a Focus on Cardiometabolic Disease, and Its Mechanistic Crosstalk.Depression and anxiety · 2026Review
- Fecal or bacterial transplantation in mice transfer environment-induced brain plasticity and associated behavioral changes.Frontiers in physiology · 2025Article
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7 authors.
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Abstract
aimThe current study aims to investigate the association of serum brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) levels with symptoms of depression in adults with and without prevalent cardiovascular disease (CVD), an often burdensome comorbidity.
methodsThis cross-sectional study included participants from FHS (Framingham Heart Study) who had available serum BDNF levels. Depressive symptoms were assessed using the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D) with a score ≥16 indicating mild to moderate and ≥21 severe depression. Participants taking antidepressant medications were excluded from the study.
resultsAltogether 3716 FHS participants were included in the final analysis (mean age, 64.3 ± 11.5 years; 55% women). After adjusting for potential confounders, greater BDNF levels were associated with reduced severe depression risk (odds ratio [OR], 0.78 [95% CI, 0.64-0.96]; P = 0.016). Among participants with CVD, greater BDNF levels were related to lower risk of depressive symptoms (CES-D ≥ 16 OR, 0.63 [95% CI, 0.45-0.89], P = 0.008; CES-D ≥ 21 OR, 0.49 [95% CI, 0.31-0.76], P = 0.002). The inverse relationship between BDNF and depressive symptom risk was present in women with CVD (CES-D ≥ 16 OR, 0.63 [95% CI, 0.40-0.99], P = 0.047; CES-D ≥ 21 OR, 0.38 [95% CI, 0.21-0.70], P = 0.002) but not in men.
conclusionLower serum BDNF levels are associated with a higher risk of depressive symptoms in CVD, particularly among women. These findings implicate BDNF in the complex biological mechanisms that underlie prior associations observed between CVD and depression. To reduce the burden of depression in the large proportion of midlife and older adults with CVD, a better understanding of how BDNF may modify these pathways is merited.
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