Author : Sivaniya Subramaniapillai
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (129 download)
Book Synopsis Sex Differences in the Aging Brain by : Sivaniya Subramaniapillai
Download or read book Sex Differences in the Aging Brain written by Sivaniya Subramaniapillai and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The mechanisms underlying sex differences in many neurodegenerative conditions have been historically understudied, despite established sex differences in the prevalence of these conditions. For example, men are more likely to be diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease, while women are at greater risk of developing Alzheimer's disease (AD). In the case of AD, two-thirds of clinically diagnosed cases are women, emphasizing the importance of investigating sex-specific biological and gender-specific sociocultural factors that might increase women's AD risk. This thesis aims to characterize brain-aging differences of women and men throughout the adult lifespan, and the factors that differentiate typical aging from atypical cases, such as AD. Understanding individual differences, whether sex, gender, non-modifiable risk factors (e.g., family history of AD), or modifiable factors (e.g., education, physical exercise) can help to clarify the heterogeneity underlying brain-aging differences, and thus inform specialized health interventions based on individual differences. The thesis describes three studies investigating sex differences in the effect of age on brain structure, function, and cognition throughout the adult lifespan. In Study 1, we report sex differences in how age affected memory-related brain activity despite there being no differences in memory performance. Older women showed retrieval-related deficits in frontoparietal and medial temporal areas that was associated with worse memory performance but demonstrated compensatory recruitment of these areas at encoding to support their performance. In men, we found that older individuals were not able to successfully recruit semantic processing brain areas (i.e., ventral lateral prefrontal and ventral visual areas) that younger men were able to recruit for successful memory performance. In Study 2, we demonstrate that cognitively normal women and men may have varied brain-aging differences depending on the presence of non-modifiable risk factors, such as a family history of AD. Despite the negative consequences of AD risk factors to brain aging, we provide preliminary evidence indicating that modifiable factors, such as physical exercise and body mass index, can buffer against AD risk factors to protect against greater brain aging. In Study 3, we conducted a systematic literature review to determine what is known about sex and gender differences in lifestyle and demographic factors, such as education, occupation, and physical activity, in promoting healthy brain aging and reducing AD risk. We found some evidence indicating that these protective factors benefit women and men equally, and in some cases, women benefit more from engaging in these factors to lower their AD risk. Taken together, the findings across these studies highlight the importance of investigating sex and gender differences in healthy aging, and the role of modifiable and non-modifiable factors in contributing to differences in brain aging"--