Establishing the bidirectional relationship between depression and subclinical arteriosclerosis – rationale, design, and characteristics of the BiDirect Study

Background: Depression and cardiovascular diseases due to arteriosclerosis are both frequent and impairing conditions. Depression and (subclinical) arteriosclerosis appear to be related in a bidirectional way, and it is plausible to assume a partly joint causal relationship. However, the biological...

Verfasser: Teismann, Henning
Wersching, Heike
Nagel, Maren
Arolt, Volker
Heindel, Walter
Baune, Bernhard Th.
Wellmann, Jürgen
Hense, Hans-Werner
Berger, Klaus
FB/Einrichtung:FB 05: Medizinische Fakultät
Dokumenttypen:Artikel
Medientypen:Text
Erscheinungsdatum:2014
Publikation in MIAMI:21.11.2014
Datum der letzten Änderung:09.01.2023
Angaben zur Ausgabe:[Electronic ed.]
Quelle:BMC Psychiatry 14 (2014) 174, 1-9
Schlagwörter:Depression; Depression subtypes; Arteriosclerosis; Cardiovascular; Cerebrovascular; (f)MRI; White matter hyperintensities; Prospective cohort study; Bidirectional
Fachgebiet (DDC):610: Medizin und Gesundheit
Lizenz:CC BY 4.0
Sprache:English
Anmerkungen:Finanziert durch den Open-Access-Publikationsfonds 2014/2015 der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) und der Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität Münster (WWU Münster).
Format:PDF-Dokument
ISSN:1471-244X
URN:urn:nbn:de:hbz:6-91339598679
Weitere Identifikatoren:DOI: doi:10.1186/1471-244X-14-174
Permalink:https://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:hbz:6-91339598679
Onlinezugriff:1471-244X-14-174.pdf

Background: Depression and cardiovascular diseases due to arteriosclerosis are both frequent and impairing conditions. Depression and (subclinical) arteriosclerosis appear to be related in a bidirectional way, and it is plausible to assume a partly joint causal relationship. However, the biological mechanisms and the behavioral pathways that lead from depression to arteriosclerosis and vice versa remain to be exactly determined. Methods/design: This study protocol describes the rationale and design of the prospective BiDirect Study that aims at investigating the mutual relationship between depression and (subclinical) arteriosclerosis. BiDirect is scheduled to follow-up three distinct cohorts of individuals ((i) patients with acute depression (N = 999), (ii) patients after an acute cardiac event (N = 347), and (iii) reference subjects from the general population (N = 912)). Over the course of 12 years, four personal examinations are planned to be conducted. The core examination program, which will remain identical across follow-ups, comprises a personal interview (e.g. medical diagnoses, health care utilization, lifestyle and risk behavior), a battery of self-administered questionnaires (e.g. depressive symptoms, readiness to change health behavior, perceived health-related quality of life), sensory (e.g. olfaction, pain) and neuropsychological (e.g. memory, executive functions, emotional processing, manual dexterity) assessments, anthropometry, body impedance measurement, a clinical work-up regarding the vascular status (e.g. electrocardiogram, blood pressure, intima media thickness), the taking of blood samples (serum and plasma, DNA), and structural and functional resonance imaging of the brain (e.g. diffusion tensor imaging, resting-state, emotional faces processing). The present report includes BiDirect-Baseline, the first data collection wave. Discussion: Due to its prospective character, the integration of three distinct cohorts, the long follow-up time window, the diligent diagnosis of depression taking depression subtypes into account, the consideration of relevant comorbidities and risk factors, the assessment of indicators of (subclinical) arteriosclerosis in different vascular territories, and the structural and functional brain imaging that is performed for a large number of participants, the BiDirect Study represents an innovative approach that combines population-based cohorts with sophisticated clinical work-up methods and that holds the potential to overcome many of the drawbacks characterizing earlier investigations.