Stroke Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Stroke, including details on treatment, recovery, rehabilitation, signs, symptoms.

Sex differences in cell death.

Li H, Pin S, Zeng Z, Wang MM, Andreasson KA, McCullough LD

Department of Neuropathology, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.

Female patients experience substantial neuroprotection after experimental stroke compared with male patients, a finding attributed to the protective effects of gonadal hormones. This study examined the response of male- and female-derived organotypic hippocampal slices to oxidative and excitotoxic injury. Both oxygen and glucose deprivation and N-methyl-D-aspartic acid exposure led to neuronal death; however, female-derived cultures sustained less injury than male-derived cultures. Cell death after oxygen and glucose deprivation was ameliorated in male cultures, but not female cultures, by the addition of 7-nitroindazole, a neuronal nitric oxide synthase inhibitor. These studies have relevance to researchers investigating neuroprotective agents in mixed sex experiments.

Published 2 August 2005 in Ann Neurol, 58(2): 317-21.
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