Sex and gender in health research: intersectionality matters.

Research policies aiming to integrate sex and gender in scientific studies are receiving increased attention in academia. Incorporating these policies into health research is essential for improving targeted and equitable healthcare outcomes, by considering both disparities and similarities between individuals relating to sex and gender. Although these efforts are both urgent and critical, only an intersectional approach, which considers broad and multidimensional aspects of an individual's identity, can provide a complete understanding of the factors that impact health.

Sex-Dependent Effects of Cardiometabolic Health and on Brain Age: A Longitudinal Cohort Study.

Background And Objectives: The aging population is growing faster than all other demographic strata. With older age comes a greater risk of health conditions such as obesity and high blood pressure (BP). These cardiometabolic risk factors (CMRs) exhibit prominent sex differences in midlife and aging, yet their influence on brain health in females vs males is largely unexplored.

Dimensions of Early-Life Adversity Are Differentially Associated With Patterns of Delayed and Accelerated Brain Maturation.

Background: Different types of early-life adversity (ELA) have been associated with children's brain structure and function. However, understanding the disparate influence of distinct adversity exposures on the developing brain remains a major challenge.

Methods: This study investigates the neural correlates of 10 robust dimensions of ELA identified through exploratory factor analysis in a large community sample of youth from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study.

Linking menopause-related factors, history of depression, APOE ε4, and proxies of biological aging in the UK biobank cohort.

In a subset of females, postmenopausal status has been linked to accelerated aging and neurological decline. A complex interplay between reproductive-related factors, mental disorders, and genetics may influence brain function and accelerate the rate of aging in the postmenopausal phase. Using multiple regressions corrected for age, in this preregistered study we investigated the associations between menopause-related factors (i.

Dissecting unique and common variance across body and brain health indicators using age prediction.

Ageing is a heterogeneous multisystem process involving different rates of decline in physiological integrity across biological systems. The current study dissects the unique and common variance across body and brain health indicators and parses inter-individual heterogeneity in the multisystem ageing process. Using machine-learning regression models on the UK Biobank data set (N = 32,593, age range 44.

Menopausal hormone therapy and the female brain: leveraging neuroimaging and prescription registry data from the UK Biobank cohort.

Background And Objectives: Menopausal hormone therapy (MHT) is generally thought to be neuroprotective, yet results have been inconsistent. Here, we present a comprehensive study of MHT use and brain characteristics in middle- to older aged females from the UK Biobank, assessing detailed MHT data, APOE ε4 genotype, and tissue-specific gray (GM) and white matter (WM) brain age gap (BAG), as well as hippocampal and white matter hyperintensity (WMH) volumes.

Methods: A total of 19,846 females with magnetic resonance imaging data were included (current-users = 1,153, 60.

Parental status and markers of brain and cellular age: A 3D convolutional network and classification study.

Recent research shows prominent effects of pregnancy and the parenthood transition on structural brain characteristics in humans. Here, we present a comprehensive study of how parental status and number of children born/fathered links to markers of brain and cellular ageing in 36,323 UK Biobank participants (age range 44.57-82.

An evolutionary timeline of the oxytocin signaling pathway.

Oxytocin is a neuropeptide associated with both psychological and somatic processes like parturition and social bonding. Although oxytocin homologs have been identified in many species, the evolutionary timeline of the entire oxytocin signaling gene pathway has yet to be described. Using protein sequence similarity searches, microsynteny, and phylostratigraphy, we assigned the genes supporting the oxytocin pathway to different phylostrata based on when we found they likely arose in evolution.

Investigating the synergistic effects of hormone replacement therapy, apolipoprotein E and age on brain health in the UK Biobank.

Global prevalence of Alzheimer's Disease has a strong sex bias, with women representing approximately two-thirds of the patients. Yet, the role of sex-specific risk factors during midlife, including hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and their interaction with other major risk factors for Alzheimer's Disease, such as apolipoprotein E (APOE)-e4 genotype and age, on brain health remains unclear. We investigated the relationship between HRT (i.

Recommendations for a Better Understanding of Sex and Gender in the Neuroscience of Mental Health.

There are prominent sex/gender differences in the prevalence, expression, and life span course of mental health and neurodiverse conditions. However, the underlying sex- and gender-related mechanisms and their interactions are still not fully understood. This lack of knowledge has harmful consequences for those with mental health problems.

Brain asymmetries from mid- to late life and hemispheric brain age.

The human brain demonstrates structural and functional asymmetries which have implications for ageing and mental and neurological disease development. We used a set of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) metrics derived from structural and diffusion MRI data in N=48,040 UK Biobank participants to evaluate age-related differences in brain asymmetry. Most regional grey and white matter metrics presented asymmetry, which were higher later in life.

Sex steroids and the female brain across the lifespan: insights into risk of depression and Alzheimer's disease.

Despite widespread sex differences in prevalence and presentation of numerous illnesses affecting the human brain, there has been little focus on the effect of endocrine ageing. Most preclinical studies have focused on males only, and clinical studies often analyse data by covarying for sex, ignoring relevant differences between the sexes. This sex- (and gender)-neutral approach is biased and contributes to the absence of targeted treatments and services for all sexes (and genders).

Sex and gender in infection and immunity: addressing the bottlenecks from basic science to public health and clinical applications.

Although sex and gender are recognized as major determinants of health and immunity, their role is rarely considered in clinical practice and public health. We identified six bottlenecks preventing the inclusion of sex and gender considerations from basic science to clinical practice, precision medicine and public health policies. (i) A terminology-related bottleneck, linked to the definitions of sex and gender themselves, and the lack of consensus on how to evaluate gender.

Bio-psycho-social factors' associations with brain age: a large-scale UK Biobank diffusion study of 35,749 participants.

Brain age refers to age predicted by brain features. Brain age has previously been associated with various health and disease outcomes and suggested as a potential biomarker of general health. Few previous studies have systematically assessed brain age variability derived from single and multi-shell diffusion magnetic resonance imaging data.

Brain-wide associations between white matter and age highlight the role of fornix microstructure in brain ageing.

Unveiling the details of white matter (WM) maturation throughout ageing is a fundamental question for understanding the ageing brain. In an extensive comparison of brain age predictions and age-associations of WM features from different diffusion approaches, we analyzed UK Biobank diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) data across midlife and older age (N = 35,749, 44.6-82.

Genetic architecture of brain age and its causal relations with brain and mental disorders.

The difference between chronological age and the apparent age of the brain estimated from brain imaging data-the brain age gap (BAG)-is widely considered a general indicator of brain health. Converging evidence supports that BAG is sensitive to an array of genetic and nongenetic traits and diseases, yet few studies have examined the genetic architecture and its corresponding causal relationships with common brain disorders. Here, we estimate BAG using state-of-the-art neural networks trained on brain scans from 53,542 individuals (age range 3-95 years).

Linking brain maturation and puberty during early adolescence using longitudinal brain age prediction in the ABCD cohort.

The temporal characteristics of adolescent neurodevelopment are shaped by a complex interplay of genetic, biological, and environmental factors. Using a large longitudinal dataset of children aged 9-13 from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study we tested the associations between pubertal status and brain maturation. Brain maturation was assessed using brain age prediction based on convolutional neural networks and minimally processed T1-weighted structural MRI data.

Shared pattern of impaired social communication and cognitive ability in the youth brain across diagnostic boundaries.

Background: Abnormalities in brain structure are shared across diagnostic categories. Given the high rate of comorbidity, the interplay of relevant behavioural factors may also cross these classic boundaries.

Methods: We aimed to detect brain-based dimensions of behavioural factors using canonical correlation and independent component analysis in a clinical youth sample (n = 1732, 64 % male, age: 5-21 years).

Associations between reproductive history, hormone use, ε4 genotype and cognition in middle- to older-aged women from the UK Biobank.

Introduction: Relative to men, women are at a higher risk of developing age-related neurocognitive disorders including Alzheimer's disease. While women's health has historically been understudied, emerging evidence suggests that reproductive life events such as pregnancy and hormone use may influence women's cognition later in life.

Methods: We investigated the associations between reproductive history, exogenous hormone use, apolipoprotein () ε4 genotype and cognition in 221,124 middle- to older-aged (mean age 56.

Longitudinal brain age prediction and cognitive function after stroke.

Advanced age is associated with post-stroke cognitive decline. Machine learning based on brain scans can be used to estimate brain age of patients, and the corresponding difference from chronological age, the brain age gap (BAG), has been investigated in a range of clinical conditions, yet not thoroughly in post-stroke neurocognitive disorder (NCD). We aimed to investigate the association between BAG and post-stroke NCD over time.