Articles

In search of sex-related mediators of affective illness

Sex differences in the rates of affective disorders have been recognized for decades. Studies of physiologic sex-related differences in animals and humans, however, have generally yielded little in terms of ex...

Authors: Christopher Sikes-Keilp and David R. Rubinow

Sex differences in recovery of motor function in a rhesus monkey model of cortical injury

Stroke disproportionately affects men and women, with women over 65 years experiencing increased severity of impairment and higher mortality rates than men. Human studies have explored risk factors that contri...

Authors: Karen R. Bottenfield, Bethany G. E. Bowley, Monica A. Pessina, Maria Medalla, Douglas L. Rosene and Tara L. Moore

Sex and gender specific health topics in medical student learners: pulse check eight years later

An essential component of patient-centered, individualized medicine is considering how sex and gender affect mechanisms of health and disease.

Authors: Ann Rydberg, Matthew R. Buras, Jaxon Quillen, Virginia Miller and Juliana M. Kling

Spatiotemporal AMPKα2 deletion in mice induces cardiac dysfunction, fibrosis and cardiolipin remodeling associated with mitochondrial dysfunction in males only

The AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) is a major regulator of cellular energetics which plays key role in acute metabolic response and in long-term adaptation to stress. Recent works have also suggested non-...

Authors: Lucile Grimbert, Maria-Nieves Sanz, Mélanie Gressette, Catherine Rucker-Martin, Marta Novotova, Audrey Solgadi, Ahmed Karoui, Susana Gomez, Kaveen Bedouet, Eric Jacquet, Christophe Lemaire, Vladimir Veksler, Mathias Mericskay, Renée Ventura-Clapier, Jérôme Piquereau and Anne Garnier

Shortening time for access to alcohol drives up front-loading behavior, bringing consumption in male rats to the level of females

Incentives to promote drinking (“happy hour”) can encourage faster rates of alcohol consumption, especially in women. Sex differences in drinking dynamics may underlie differential health vulnerabilities relat...

Authors: Annabelle Flores-Bonilla, Barbara De Oliveira, Andrea Silva-Gotay, Kyle W. Lucier and Heather N. Richardson

Role of GDF-15, YKL-40 and MMP 9 in patients with end-stage kidney disease: focus on sex-specific associations with vascular outcomes and all-cause mortality

Sex differences are underappreciated in the current understanding of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in association with chronic kidney disease (CKD). A hallmark of CKD is vascular aging that is characterised, am...

Authors: Agne Laucyte-Cibulskiene, Liam J. Ward, Thomas Ebert, Giulia Tosti, Claudia Tucci, Leah Hernandez, Alexandra Kautzky-Willer, Maria-Trinidad Herrero, Colleen M. Norris, Louise Pilote, Magnus Söderberg, Torkel B. Brismar, Jonaz Ripsweden, Peter Stenvinkel, Valeria Raparelli and Karolina Kublickiene

Ischemic preconditioning protects the heart against ischemia-reperfusion injury in chronic kidney disease in both males and females

Uremic cardiomyopathy is a common cardiovascular complication of chronic kidney disease (CKD) characterized by left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) and fibrosis enhancing the susceptibility of the heart to acute...

Authors: Márta Sárközy, Fanni Magdolna Márványkövi, Gergő Szűcs, Zsuzsanna Z. A. Kovács, Márton R. Szabó, Renáta Gáspár, Andrea Siska, Bence Kővári, Gábor Cserni, Imre Földesi and Tamás Csont

Correction to: Sex differences in a cohort of COVID-19 Italian patients hospitalized during the first and second pandemic waves

Authors: Virginia Quaresima, Cristina Scarpazza, Alessandra Sottini, Chiara Fiorini, Simona Signorini, Ottavia Maria Delmonte, Liana Signorini, Eugenia Quiros-Roldan and Luisa Imberti

Investigating the sex-dependent effects of prefrontal cortex stimulation on response execution and inhibition

Context-dependent execution or inhibition of a response is an important aspect of executive control, which is impaired in neuropsychological and addiction disorders. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tD...

Authors: Daniel J. Fehring, Ranshikha Samandra, Zakia Z. Haque, Shapour Jaberzadeh, Marcello Rosa and Farshad A. Mansouri

Activation of G protein-coupled estradiol receptor 1 in the dorsolateral striatum enhances motivation for cocaine and drug-induced reinstatement in female but not male rats

Estradiol potentiates drug-taking behaviors, including motivation to self-administer cocaine and reinstatement of drug-seeking after extinction in females, but not males. The dorsolateral stratum (DLS) is a re...

Authors: Jacqueline A. Quigley, Molly K. Logsdon, Brianna C. Graham, Kendra G. Beaudoin and Jill B. Becker

Sex differences in a cohort of COVID-19 Italian patients hospitalized during the first and second pandemic waves

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) severity seems to be influenced by genetic background, sex, age, and presence of specific comorbidities. So far, little attention has been paid to sex-specific variations of...

Authors: Virginia Quaresima, Cristina Scarpazza, Alessandra Sottini, Chiara Fiorini, Simona Signorini, Ottavia Maria Delmonte, Liana Signorini, Eugenia Quiros-Roldan and Luisa Imberti

Testosterone and depressive symptoms during the late menopause transition

The menopause transition is associated with an increased risk of depression. While the mechanisms behind this increased risk are not well understood, the changing perimenopausal hormonal environment has been h...

Authors: Bethany Sander, Amira Muftah, Laurie Sykes Tottenham, Julia A. Grummisch and Jennifer L. Gordon

Sexual dimorphism of monocyte transcriptome in individuals with chronic low-grade inflammation

Sexual dimorphism in the immune system is evidenced by a higher prevalence of autoimmune diseases in women and higher susceptibility to infectious diseases in men. However, the molecular basis of these sex-bas...

Authors: Jisun So, Albert K. Tai, Alice H. Lichtenstein, Dayong Wu and Stefania Lamon-Fava

Correction to: Network analysis of the left anterior descending coronary arteries in swim-trained rats by an in situ video microscopic technique

Authors: Marianna Török, Petra Merkely, Anna Monori-Kiss, Eszter Mária Horváth, Réka Eszter Sziva, Borbála Péterffy, Attila Jósvai, Alex Ali Sayour, Attila Oláh, Tamás Radovits, Béla Merkely, Nándor Ács, György László Nádasy and Szabolcs Várbíró

The effect of reproductive hormones on women’s daily smoking across the menstrual cycle

Women attempt to quit smoking less often than men and are less likely to maintain abstinence. Reproductive hormones have been postulated as a reason for this sex difference, though this remains to be clarified...

Authors: Ashley R. Ethier, Ty L. McKinney, Laurie Sykes Tottenham and Jennifer L. Gordon

A retrospective study on sex difference in patients with urolithiasis: who is more vulnerable to chronic kidney disease?

Urolithiasis is considered a vital public health issue with a substantial burden on kidney function. Additionally, only few reports focused on the gender difference in patients with urolithiasis. Therefore, th...

Authors: Tsu-Ming Chien, Yen-Man Lu, Ching-Chia Li, Wen-Jeng Wu, Hsueh-Wei Chang and Yii-Her Chou

Sex difference in the association between plasma selenium and first stroke: a community-based nested case-control study

To date, there is no clearly defined association between plasma selenium levels and first stroke. We aimed to investigate the association between baseline plasma selenium and first stroke risk in a community-b...

Authors: Huan Hu, Chonglei Bi, Tengfei Lin, Lishun Liu, Yun Song, Binyan Wang, Ping Wang, Ziyi Zhou, Chongqian Fang, Hai Ma, Xiao Huang, Lihua Hu, Xiping Xu, Hao Zhang, Yong Huo, Xiaobin Wang…

A cross-cohort analysis of autosomal DNA methylation sex differences in the term placenta

Human placental DNA methylation (DNAme) data is a valuable resource for studying sex differences during gestation, as DNAme profiles after delivery reflect the cumulative effects of gene expression patterns an...

Authors: Amy M. Inkster, Victor Yuan, Chaini Konwar, Allison M. Matthews, Carolyn J. Brown and Wendy P. Robinson

Network analysis of the left anterior descending coronary arteries in swim-trained rats by an in situ video microscopic technique

We aimed to identify sex differences in the network properties and to recognize the geometric alteration effects of long-term swim training in a rat model of exercise-induced left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy.

Authors: Marianna Török, Petra Merkely, Anna Monori-Kiss, Eszter Mária Horváth, Réka Eszter Sziva, Borbála Péterffy, Attila Jósvai, Alex Ali Sayour, Attila Oláh, Tamás Radovits, Béla Merkely, Nándor Ács, György László Nádasy and Szabolcs Várbíró

Sex differences in vancomycin-resistant enterococci bloodstream infections—a systematic review and meta-analysis

Vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) have emerged in the healthcare setting worldwide. Infections with these pathogens, i.e., bloodstream infections (BSI), are accompanied with an impaired patient outcome. D...

Authors: Carlos L. Correa-Martínez, Franziska Schuler and Stefanie Kampmeier

Sex differences in the intestinal microbiome: interactions with risk factors for atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease

There are clearly sex differences in cardiovascular disease. On average, women experience cardiovascular events at an older age, and at any age, women, on average, have less atherosclerotic plaque than men. Th...

Authors: Shamon Ahmed and J. David Spence

Sex differences associated with adverse drug reactions resulting in hospital admissions

Adverse drug events, including adverse drug reactions (ADRs), are responsible for approximately 5% of unplanned hospital admissions: a major health concern. Women are 1.5–1.7 times more likely to develop ADRs....

Authors: L. C. Hendriksen, P. D. van der Linden, A. L. M. Lagro-Janssen, P. M. L. A. van den Bemt, S. J. Siiskonen, M. Teichert, J. G. Kuiper, R. M. C. Herings, B. H. Stricker and L. E. Visser

Sex differences in soluble prorenin receptor in patients with type 2 diabetes

The soluble prorenin receptor (sPRR), a member of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS), is elevated in plasma of patients with preeclampsia, hypertension, chronic kidney disease (CKD), and type 2 diabetes. Our g...

Authors: Bruna Visniauskas, Danielle Y. Arita, Carla B. Rosales, Mohammed A. Feroz, Christina Luffman, Michael J. Accavitti, Gabrielle Dawkins, Jennifer Hong, Andrew C. Curnow, Tina K. Thethi, John J. Lefante, Edgar A. Jaimes, Franck Mauvais-Jarvis, Vivian A. Fonseca and Minolfa C. Prieto

Lower variability in female students than male students at multiple timescales supports the use of sex as a biological variable in human studies

Men have been, and still are, included in more studies than women, in large part because of the lingering belief that ovulatory cycles result in women showing too much variability to be economically viable sub...

Authors: Benjamin L. Smarr, Annick Laure Ishami and Aaron E. Schirmer

Characterisation of cardiac health in the reduced uterine perfusion pressure model and a 3D cardiac spheroid model, of preeclampsia

Preeclampsia is a dangerous cardiovascular disorder of pregnancy that leads to an increased risk of future cardiovascular and metabolic disorders. Much of the pathogenesis and mechanisms involved in cardiac he...

Authors: Claire Richards, Kimberly Sesperez, Michael Chhor, Sahar Ghorbanpour, Claire Rennie, Clara Liu Chung Ming, Chris Evenhuis, Valentina Nikolic, Natasa Karadzov Orlic, Zeljko Mikovic, Milan Stefanovic, Zoran Cakic, Kristine McGrath, Carmine Gentile, Kristen Bubb and Lana McClements

Acute kidney injury is more common in men than women after accounting for socioeconomic status, ethnicity, alcohol intake and smoking history

The association of several comorbidities, including diabetes mellitus, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, heart failure and chronic kidney or liver disease, with acute kidney injury (AKI) is well establishe...

Authors: Charalampos Loutradis, Luke Pickup, Jonathan P. Law, Indranil Dasgupta, Jonathan N. Townend, Paul Cockwell, Adnan Sharif, Pantelis Sarafidis and Charles J. Ferro

Hepatic steatosis and steatohepatitis: a functional meta-analysis of sex-based differences in transcriptomic studies

Previous studies have described sex-based differences in the epidemiological and clinical patterns of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD); however, we understand relatively little regarding the underlyin...

Authors: José F. Català-Senent, Marta R. Hidalgo, Marina Berenguer, Gopanandan Parthasarathy, Harmeet Malhi, Pablo Malmierca-Merlo, María de la Iglesia-Vayá and Francisco García-García

Impact of sex in the prevalence and progression of glioblastomas: the role of gonadal steroid hormones

As in other types of cancers, sex is an essential factor in the origin and progression of glioblastomas. Research in the field of endocrinology and cancer suggests that gonadal steroid hormones play an importa...

Authors: Claudia Bello-Alvarez and Ignacio Camacho-Arroyo

Chronic ethanol vapor exposure potentiates cardiovascular responses to acute stress in male but not in female rats

Ethanol use is related to a wide variety of negative health outcomes, including cardiovascular diseases. Stress is also involved in numerous pathologies, such as cardiovascular diseases and psychiatric disorde...

Authors: Paula C. Bianchi, Lucas Gomes-de-Souza, Willian Costa-Ferreira, Paola Palombo, Paulo E. Carneiro de Oliveira, Sheila A. Engi, Rodrigo M. Leão, Cleopatra S. Planeta, Carlos C. Crestani and Fabio C. Cruz

Sex differences in fetal Doppler parameters during gestation

Fetal sex is known to affect pregnancy outcomes. In current clinical practice, monitoring of fetal well-being is based on Doppler ultrasound measurements of major placental and fetal vessels. The objective of ...

Authors: Dakshita Jagota, Hannah George, Melissa Walker, Anjana Ravi Chandran, Natasha Milligan, Shiri Shinar, Clare L. Whitehead, Sebastian R. Hobson, Lena Serghides, W. Tony Parks, Ahmet A. Baschat, Christopher K. Macgowan, John G. Sled, John C. Kingdom and Lindsay S. Cahill

Thyroid hormone: sex-dependent role in nervous system regulation and disease

Thyroid hormone (TH) regulates many functions including metabolism, cell differentiation, and nervous system development. Alteration of thyroid hormone level in the body can lead to nervous system-related prob...

Authors: Shounak Baksi and Ajay Pradhan

Sex differences in noise-induced hearing loss: a cross-sectional study in China

Significant sex differences exist in hearing physiology, while few human studies have investigated sex differences in noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL), and the sex bias in previous studies resulted in inadequ...

Authors: Qixuan Wang, Xueling Wang, Lu Yang, Kun Han, Zhiwu Huang and Hao Wu

Gender-related variables for health research

In this paper, we argue for Gender as a Sociocultural Variable (GASV) as a complement to Sex as a Biological Variable (SABV). Sex (biology) and gender (sociocultural behaviors and attitudes) interact to influe...

Authors: Mathias W. Nielsen, Marcia L. Stefanick, Diana Peragine, Torsten B. Neilands, John P. A. Ioannidis, Louise Pilote, Judith J. Prochaska, Mark R. Cullen, Gillian Einstein, Ineke Klinge, Hannah LeBlanc, Hee Young Paik and Londa Schiebinger

Estrogen receptors in pain modulation: cellular signaling

Sensory perception and emotional disorders are disproportionally represented in men and women and are thus thought to be modulated by different sex hormones in various conditions. Among the most important horm...

Authors: Qing Chen, Wenxin Zhang, Neeti Sadana and Xinzhong Chen

Sex-dependent effects of prenatal food and protein restriction on offspring physiology in rats and mice: systematic review and meta-analyses

Males and females may experience different effects of early-life adversity on life-long health. One hypothesis is that male foetuses invest more in foetal growth and relatively less in placental growth, and th...

Authors: Julian K. Christians, Haroop K. Shergill and Arianne Y. K. Albert

Clinical characteristics and outcomes in women and men hospitalized for coronavirus disease 2019 in New Orleans

Determine if sex differences exist in clinical characteristics and outcomes of adults hospitalized for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in a US healthcare system.

Authors: Yilin Yoshida, Scott A. Gillet, Margo I. Brown, Yuanhao Zu, Sarah M. Wilson, Sabreen J. Ahmed, Saritha Tirumalasetty, Dragana Lovre, Marie Krousel-Wood, Joshua L. Denson and Franck Mauvais-Jarvis

Sex differences in uterine artery Doppler during gestation in pregnancies complicated by placental dysfunction

There is growing evidence of sex differences in placental vascular development. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of fetal sex on uterine artery pulsatility index (PI) throughout gestat...

Authors: Leah Paranavitana, Melissa Walker, Anjana Ravi Chandran, Natasha Milligan, Shiri Shinar, Clare L. Whitehead, Sebastian R. Hobson, Lena Serghides, W. Tony Parks, Ahmet A. Baschat, Christopher K. Macgowan, John G. Sled, John C. Kingdom and Lindsay S. Cahill

Age-dependent changes of gender disparities in nasopharyngeal carcinoma survival

The mortality of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is usually lower in females than in males, but the underlying mechanism remains largely unknown. We sought to describe the age-dependent patterns of gender dispa...

Authors: Wang-Zhong Li, Shu-Hui Lv, Guo-Ying Liu, Hu Liang, Wei-Xiong Xia and Yan-Qun Xiang

The visceral fat area to leg muscle mass ratio is significantly associated with the risk of hyperuricemia among women: a cross-sectional study

A significant positive association was found in previous studies among obesity, visceral fat accumulation, and hyperuricemia. The purpose of this study was to explore the association between the ratio of visce...

Authors: Xiao-He Wang, Wei-Ran Jiang, Min-Ying Zhang, Ying-Xin Shi, Yun-Ping Ji, Chun-Jun Li and Jing-Na Lin

Association of menopausal status with COVID-19 outcomes: a propensity score matching analysis

Despite the growing number of studies on the coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19), little is known about the association of menopausal status with COVID-19 outcomes.

Authors: Xing-Wang Wang, Hao Hu, Zhi-Yong Xu, Gong-Kai Zhang, Qing-Hua Yu, Hui-Lan Yang and Ji-Hua Zheng

Gender score development in the Berlin Aging Study II: a retrospective approach

In addition to biological sex, gender, defined as the sociocultural dimension of being a woman or a man, plays a central role in health. However, there are so far few approaches to quantify gender in a retrosp...

Authors: Ahmad Tauseef Nauman, Hassan Behlouli, Nicholas Alexander, Friederike Kendel, Johanna Drewelies, Konstantinos Mantantzis, Nora Berger, Gert G. Wagner, Denis Gerstorf, Ilja Demuth, Louise Pilote and Vera Regitz-Zagrosek

Sex differences in stroke outcome correspond to rapid and severe changes in gut permeability in adult Sprague-Dawley rats

Sex differences in experimental stroke outcomes are well documented, such that adult males have a greater infarct volume, increased stroke-induced mortality, and more severe sensory-motor impairment. Based on ...

Authors: Yumna El-Hakim, Kathiresh Kumar Mani, Amir Eldouh, Sivani Pandey, Maria T. Grimaldo, Alan Dabney, Rachel Pilla and Farida Sohrabji

Sex differences in the association of sphingolipids with age in Dutch and South-Asian Surinamese living in Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Men have a higher risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) early in life, while women have a higher risk later in life. The sex-related differences in CVD risk, especially by age, could be related to sphingolipid...

Authors: Mirthe Muilwijk, Nardie Callender, Susan Goorden, Frédéric M. Vaz and Irene G. M. van Valkengoed

The role of vitamin D in autoimmune diseases: could sex make the difference?

Over the last decades, a central role for vitamin D in immune modulation has been well established. The active form of vitamin D, i.e., 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D, through the interaction with vitamin D receptor,...

Authors: Maria Luisa Dupuis, Maria Teresa Pagano, Marina Pierdominici and Elena Ortona

Important differences between hypertensive middle-aged women and men in cardiovascular autonomic control—a critical appraisal

Normotensive premenopausal women show a vagal predominance of cardiac autonomic modulation, whereas age-matched men show a predominance of sympathetic modulation. However, some women develop systemic arterial ...

Authors: Stella V. Philbois, Tábata P. Facioli, Ada C. Gastaldi, Jhennyfer A. L. Rodrigues, Jens Tank, Thauane H. Fares, Karine P. Rodrigues and Hugo C. D. Souza

Maternal DHA supplementation influences sex-specific disruption of placental gene expression following early prenatal stress

Early life adversity is widely recognized as a key risk factor for early developmental perturbations and contributes to the presentation of neuropsychiatric disorders in adulthood. Neurodevelopmental disorders...

Authors: Eldin Jašarević, Patrick M. Hecht, Kevin L. Fritsche, David C. Geary, Rocío M. Rivera and David Q. Beversdorf

A sex-stratified long-term clinical outcome analysis in coronary chronic total occlusion patients

Differences in outcomes for women and men after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in chronic total occlusion (CTO) patients remain controversial. Herein, we compared the clinical outcomes by sex in CTO ...

Authors: Xuhe Gong, Li Zhou, Xiaosong Ding, Hongwei Li and Hui Chen

Increased P450 aromatase levels in post-menopausal women after acute ischemic stroke

Sex differences in stroke have been attributed to the neuroprotective effects of estrogen, yet most clinical trials of estrogen supplementation for stroke prevention have failed. The contribution of sex hormon...

Authors: Bharti Manwani, Pamela Fall, Liang Zhu, Meaghan Roy O’Reilly, Sarah Conway, Ilene Staff and Louise D. McCullough

Sex-dependent differences in the secretome of human endothelial cells

Cellular sex has rarely been considered as a biological variable in preclinical research, even when the pathogenesis of diseases with predictable sex differences is studied. In this perspective, proteomics, an...

Authors: Maria Grazia Cattaneo, Cristina Banfi, Maura Brioschi, Donatella Lattuada and Lucia M. Vicentini

Analysis of sex differences in dietary copper-fructose interaction-induced alterations of gut microbial activity in relation to hepatic steatosis

Inadequate copper intake and increased fructose consumption represent two important nutritional problems in the USA. Dietary copper-fructose interactions alter gut microbial activity and contribute to the deve...

Authors: Ming Song, Fang Yuan, Xiaohong Li, Xipeng Ma, Xinmin Yin, Eric C. Rouchka, Xiang Zhang, Zhongbin Deng, Russell A. Prough and Craig J. McClain