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Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains a major issue for global health. Atherosclerosis, its main underlying mechanism, is characterized by the presence of the atherosclerotic plaque inside the arteries. A large body of research supports the association between several psychological factors and atherosclerosis and health-related behaviors. The aim of this study was to investigate the predictive value of eleven psychological risk factors for (1) atherosclerosis and (2) health-related behaviors. The sample consisted in 3532 women and men between the ages of 40-60 years, with low to intermediate risk for CVD. In this cross-sectional study, the association between atherosclerotic plaque and eleven psychological variables was investigated through multiple regression. The associations were weak but statistically significant for a few of the psychological variables. A lifestyle index based on reported behaviors was created, which exhibited somewhat stronger associations with the psychological variables. A likely interpretation is therefore that the psychological variables mainly influence behavior, which in turn influences CVD, Future research should assess the veracity and causality of the associations between psychological factors and CVD, and the potential mechanisms involved.

Automatic segmentation of the lumen of carotid arteries in ultrasound images is a starting step in providing preventive care for patients with atherosclerosis. To perform the segmentation this paper introduces a model utilizing a threshold algorithm. The model was tested with two different threshold algorithms, Otsu and Sauvola, then scored against professionally drawn masks. The scores were calculated with Dice and Jaccard-Needham as well as specificity, recall, and f1-score. The results showed promising mean and median similarity between the predictions and masks. Future work includes either optimizing the current model or augmenting it to give an even better ground to continue the work on providing preventive care for atherosclerosis patients.