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Updated: Sep 30, 2026

A Middle Cerebral Artery Occlusion Technique for Inducing Post-stroke Depression in Rats
Published on: May 22, 2019
Common susceptibility variants of KDR and IGF-1R are associated with poststroke depression in the Chinese population
Yingying Yue1, Linlin You1, Fuying Zhao2
1Department of Psychosomatics and Psychiatry, ZhongDa Hospital, Southeast University, Nanjing, China.
Background:
Depression, one of the most frequent complications after stroke, increases the disease's burden and physical disability. Poststroke depression (PSD) is a multifactorial disease with genetic, environmental and biological factors involved in its occurrence. Genetic studies on PSD to date have mainly focused on the monoamine system and brain-derived neurotrophic factors. However, understanding is still limited about the influence of the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) of other neurotrophic factors on PSD.
Aims:
The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between seven vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) family gene variants that occur with PSD.
Methods:
A multicentre candidate gene study from five hospitals in Jiangsu Province from June 2013 to December 2014 involved 121 patients with PSD and 131 patients with non-PSD. Demographic characteristics and neuropsychological assessments were collected. The χ2 test was used to evaluate categorical variables, while the independent t-test was applied to continuous variables. SNPs in seven genes (VEGFA, VEGFB, KDR, FLT-1, IGF-1, IGF-1R and PlGF) were genotyped. Single-marker association for PSD was analysed by χ2 tests and logistic regression using SPSS and PLINK software.
Results:
Patients with PSD included more women and those with lower education levels, lower body mass indexes, lower Mini-Mental State Examination scores, and higher scores on the 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale than non-PSD patients. Ninety-two SNPs with seven genes were genotyped and passed quality control. The rs7692791 CC genotypes, the C allele of KDR and the rs9282715 T allele of IGF-1R increased the risk for PSD (χ2=7.881, p=0.019; χ2=4.259, p=0.039; χ2=4.222, p=0.040, respectively). In addition, the SNP rs7692791 of KDR was significantly associated with PSD by the logistic regression of an additive model (p=0.015, OR=9.584, 95% CI: 1.549 to 59.31).
Conclusions:
Patients with rs7692791 C allele carriers or the CC genotype of KDR and the rs9282715 T allele of IGF-1R may have PSD susceptibility. Findings such as these may help clinicians to identify the high-risk population for PSD earlier and, thus, enable them to provide more timely interventions.
Trial Registration Number:
ChiCTR-OCH-13003133.

