Male and female brains age differently

William Atkins
Thursday, 06 November 2008 18:05

Science - Biology

Besides, Cotman and Berchtold, the other authors, from the states of Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, and California are David H. Cribbs, Paul D. Coleman, Joseph Rogers, Elizabeth Head, Ronald Kim, Tom Beach, Carol Miller, Juan Troncoso, John Q. Trojanowski, and H. Ronald Zielke.

Two major findings were discovered by the Cotman-Berchtold team.

In the abstract to their paper, the authors stated, “First, different regions of the forebrain exhibited substantially different gene profile changes with age. For example, comparing equally powered groups, 5,029 probe sets were significantly altered with age in the superior-frontal gyrus, compared with 1,110 in the entorhinal cortex. Prominent change occurred in the sixth to seventh decades across cortical regions, suggesting that this period is a critical transition point in brain aging, particularly in males.”

In other words, men in their sixth and seventh decades (60s and 70s) of life have more changes in gene activity, relative to the preceding two decades, than women.

Specifically, the researchers found that the parts of the brain that were most susceptible to disease had the least amount of change in its genes with respect to aging. The postcentral gyrus, the part of the brain used for perception, aged the most.

They then stated, “Second, clear gender differences in brain aging were evident, suggesting that the brain undergoes sexually dimorphic changes in gene expression not only in development but also in later life. Globally across all brain regions, males showed more gene change than females.”

In other words, there is a pattern of aging within male brains that is different from the aging pattern found in women’s brains. Men showed more change than women.

Men had distinct changes in age-related metabolic activity, while women had visible age-relted changes in genes that develop neural connections and maintain information exchange

Dr. Berchtold states, "What I think it means, especially for men, is that interventions -- either lifestyle or medication -- may be needed to keep these energy pathways robust.” [Third Age: “Patterns Differ in Aging Brains”]

This study contends that the aging process in the brains of men and women should be studied individually, along with collectively, because of the differences in the brain of the two genders.