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Updated: Jun 13, 2026
Using Retinal Imaging to Study Dementia
Published on: November 6, 2017
Retinal vascular calibers and risk of late-life depression: The Rotterdam Study
M Kamran Ikram1, Hendrika J Luijendijk, Albert Hofman
1Department of Epidemiology, Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
Objectives:
To test the "vascular depression" hypothesis, the authors investigated whether smaller retinal arteriolar or larger venular calibers, which are markers of cerebral microvascular disease, were associated with incident late-life depression.
Methods:
The authors included 3,605 participants (age > or =55 years) from the population-based Rotterdam Study with no depression at baseline (1993-1995) and fundus photographs gradable for retinal vascular caliber measurements. The authors identified persons with incident depressive symptoms and syndromes using psychiatric interviews during follow-up visits and continuous monitoring. The follow-up was complete until October 2005.
Results:
After a mean follow-up of 9.0 years, 555 participants developed incident depression, including 312 with depressive syndrome. Neither smaller arteriolar (age- and sex-adjusted hazard ratio: 1.01; 95% confidence interval: 0.93-1.10), nor larger venular calibers (hazard ratio: 1.02; 95% confidence interval: 0.94-1.12) were associated with incident depressive syndromes.
Conclusions:
Our data showed no evidence of an association between retinal vascular calibers and incident late-life depression.
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