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Neuropsychiatric research needs to examine the relationships between aetiological, genotypic and clinical risk factors and behavioural phenotypes. These relationships can now be examined in older patients with depressive disorders.

Key behavioural features, clinical and vascular risk factors and putative genotypes for late-onset neurodegenerative disorders and/or vascular disease were recorded in 78 older patients with depression (mean age = 54·9 years, S.D. = 14·1) and 22 healthy control subjects (mean age = 55·5 years, S.D. = 9·6).

Two or more vascular risks were more common in older patients (65% v. 26% of control subjects, P < 0·01), and in patients with late-onset disorders (82% v. 57% in patients with early-onset disorders, P < 0·05). Patients with late-onset depression had a higher prevalence of the homozygous or heterozygous forms of the C677T mutation of the …