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Study Suggests That Aging Female Brains Have More Youthful Metabolism Than Male Brains
Female Brains Appear to Be More Youthful Than Male Ones, Study Suggests [sciencealert.com]
Scientists have just found a new distinction between the brains of the two sexes: age-related changes to the brain occur more slowly in women than in men. The jury is still out on whether cognitive differences between men and women are created by nature or nurture [nih.gov] [open, DOI: 10.1007/s10508-014-0311-5] [DX [doi.org]] - or to what extent they even exist [southbankcentre.co.uk] - but we do know that average structural differences between the sexes are a real thing [cam.ac.uk].
This latest research now indicates that female brains, on average, appear to be about three years more youthful than the brains of males of the same age when it comes to brain metabolism. This difference could be why women tend to stay mentally sharp [bmj.com] [open, DOI: 10.1136/jnnp.71.1.29] [DX [doi.org]] for longer than men, the researchers said.
"We're just starting to understand how various sex-related factors might affect the trajectory of brain ageing and how that might influence the vulnerability of the brain to neurodegenerative diseases," said neuroscientist Manu Goyal [wustl.edu] of the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. "Brain metabolism might help us understand some of the differences we see between men and women as they age."
Scientists had already established that age-related grey matter volume decrease occurs more quickly in male brains than female brains [springer.com] [DOI: 10.1007/s11682-015-9468-3] [DX [doi.org]]. It's also been demonstrated [pnas.org] [open, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0806883105] [DX [doi.org]] that gene expression in the brain changes more rapidly in ageing men than women, resulting in a reduced ability to build and break down molecules in the male brain.
Also at NPR [npr.org].
Persistent metabolic youth in the aging female brain [pnas.org] (open, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1815917116) (DX [doi.org])
