Male, Female Brains Operate Differently And may Respond Differently to Certain Drugs

A study of a brain region involved in learning and memory, responses to stress and epilepsy has found that male and female brains operate differently at a molecular level. The research suggests that female and male brains may respond differently to certain drugs.

"The importance of studying sex differences in the brain is about making biology and medicine relevant to everyone, to both men and women," said senior author of the study Catherine Woolley, professor at Northwestern in Illinois, US.

New Technique Developed By Swiss Scientists to Map Human Brain in Finer Detail
A team from Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne have developed a technique that rapidly freezes the brain, preserving its true structure.

"It is not about things such as who is better at reading a map or why more men than women choose to enter certain professions," Woolley explained.

Among their findings, the scientists found that a drug called URB-597, which regulates a molecule important in neurotransmitter release, had an effect in females that it did not have in males.

While the study was done in rats, it has broad implications for humans because this drug and others like it are currently being tested in clinical trials in humans.

Brain Recognizes New Matrix-based Neural Electrodes As Its Own Composition
Instead of using neural prostheses, researchers have developed a brain-friendly extracellular matrix environment of neuronal cells with very little foreign material.

To find out what is the same and what is different between males and females, scientists need to study both sexes, Woolley maintained.

Currently, about 85 percent of basic neuroscience studies are done in male animals, tissues or cells.

Cryofixation, New Brain Imaging Method To Help Understand Anatomy Of Brain Better
The connections between neurons, the synapses, seemed significantly weaker in the chemically-fixed brain imaging method compared to the cryofixed one.

"We are not doing women -- and specifically women's health -- any favors by pretending that things are the same if they are not," Woolley said.

"If the results of research would be different in female animals, tissues and cells, then we need to know. This is essential so that we can find appropriate diagnoses, treatments and, ultimately, cures for disease in both sexes," she pointed out.

Cesarean Birth Experience Influences a Baby's Psychological and Brain Development
Babies delivered by natural birth were quicker in focusing attention on an object of interest than those delivered by Cesarean section, claims a new study.

The study was published in The Journal of Neuroscience.

Source-IANS