Sex Differences Associated with Stress Elevated in Females
By Maria Younan
Recent stress studies have looked into the differences between females and males, both biologically and behaviorally. Dr. Monsheel Sodhi gave a talk where she spoke about the interactions between the glutamate receptor gene expression in depression and suicide, and the associated sex differences. Previous research shows that the glutamate system is distorted in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). Dr. Sodhi’s research has found that female subjects with MDD have elevated glutamate receptor gene expression, whereas in male subjects with MDD expression was lower, in comparison to controls. Furthermore, female MDD suicides revealed higher expression of glutamate, which reveals interesting potentiality in anticipating suicide. Ultimately, her work emphasizes the need to dig into biological sex differences, and to investigate and include more females in studies.
Recently, a study conducted at the University of Pittsburgh explored the association between alcohol abuse and stress using rats. Mary Torregrossa’s team measured risk factors which lead to alcohol abuse in the rats. The rats were trained to press a lever which gave them alcohol, which was paired with an audiovisual cue, for three weeks. Next, the rats were given yohimbine, a drug which produces a stress response in humans and rats. Researchers found that, similarly to Dr. Sodhi’s work, the females pressed the lever more than the male rats, following a cue or stress exposure. When given a combination of the cue and stress exposure, females still had higher alcohol seeking behaviors than the males.
The results of this study could have potentially large implications for people as related to Dr. Sodhi’s talk. The talk and study indicate the females being more impacted than males, either behaviorally or biologically. This study shows that the females influenced by stress were driven to seek and consume alcohol. The talk depicts that females have higher gene expression in glutamate pathways when associated with MDD/suicide.
Even though the study is implicated in mice, the findings of the study also highlight a basis for looking into the differences between sex and brain pathways. There is a trend of females having elevated impacts, either biologically as seen in Dr. Sodhi’s work, or behaviorally as seen in the study done at the University of Pittsburgh. Hopefully, increased efforts by researchers will explore various sex differences and the impact on female subjects to increase the knowledge and direct further treatments.
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