AUTHOR=Wang Ruiming , Liu Keqin , Ye Xiaoyun , Yan Shenqiang 

TITLE=Association Between Cerebral Microbleeds and Depression in the General Elderly Population: A Meta-Analysis

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychiatry

VOLUME=Volume 9 - 2018

YEAR=2018

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00094

DOI=10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00094

ISSN=1664-0640

ABSTRACT=Background: It remains unclear whether cerebral microbleeds (CMBs) are associated with depression in the general elderly population. We thus performed a meta-analysis to evaluate the relationship between depression and CMBs. 
Methods: A systematic literature search was conducted in EBSCO, PubMed and Web of Science for relevant studies that assessed the relationship between depression and the prevalence of CMBs.
Results: Five eligible studies including 7328 patients were pooled in meta-analysis. The prevalence of CMBs was 18.0%. The prevalence of depression was 11.1%. The pooled analysis demonstrated odds ratio for CMBs and depression to be 1.187 (95% CI 1.005 to 1.403; p = 0.043) with no evidence of statistical heterogeneity (I2 = 0.0%, p = 0.621). 
Conclusions: Our meta-analysis of available published data indicated an increased prevalence of depression in the subjects with pre-existing CMBs. This finding supports the vascular depression hypothesis. Further studies are needed to investigate the role of CMBs in the pathogenesis and progression of depression, which might provide a potential target for the prevention and treatment.