Gender vs. Sex - Bird Flu in Mammal Brains - Slowing Brain Aging
Breedlove, S
Brain imaging study in children shows sex and gender operate in different networks of the brain
By Phie Jacobs
Is there really such a thing as a “male” or “female” brain? Sex certainly seems to affect a person’s risk of developing various psychiatric and other brain-related conditions—but scientists aren’t entirely sure why. Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder for example, is more commonly diagnosed in individuals who were assigned male at birth (AMAB), whereas those assigned female at birth (AFAB) are more likely to exhibit symptoms of anxiety. It’s unclear, however, whether these differences are actually driven by sex, or have more to do with how people are perceived and treated based on their sex or gender.
Now, new research suggests sex and gender are associated with distinct brain networks. Published today in Science Advances, the findings draw on brain imaging data from nearly 5000 children to reveal that gender and sex aren’t just distinct from one another in society—they also play unique roles in biology.
In science, the term “biological sex” encompasses a variety of genetic, hormonal, and anatomical characteristics. People are typically assigned “male” or “female” as their sex at birth, although the medical establishment in recent years has begun to acknowledge that sex doesn’t always fall neatly into binary categories. Indeed, about 0.05% of children born in the United States are assigned intersex at birth. Gender, by contrast, has more to do with a person’s attitudes, feelings, and behavior—and may not always align with the sex they were assigned at birth.
These nuances often go unrecognized in neuroscience, says Sheila Shanmugan, a reproductive psychiatrist at the University of Pennsylvania who wasn’t involved in the new study. Sex and gender-based differences in the brain “have historically been understudied,” she explains, “and terms describing each are often conflated.”
© 2024 American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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https://www.sciencenews.org/article/bird-mammal-brain-outbreak-influenza
Bird flu has been invading the brains of mammals. Here’s why
By Erin Garcia de Jesús
In spring 2022, a handful of red foxes in Wisconsin were behaving oddly. Veterinary pathologist Betsy Elsmo learned that a local wildlife rehabilitation center was caring for foxes with neurological symptoms like seizures, tremors, uncoordinated movements and lethargy.
But tests for common pathogens like canine distemper virus and rabies that typically cause the symptoms came back negative. Then a red fox kit tested positive for influenza A. This group of viruses includes seasonal flus that cause respiratory disease in people and many other strains that commonly circulate among animals such as waterfowl and other birds.
“I was surprised,” says Elsmo, of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. “And to be honest, at first I kind of wrote it off.”
That is, until a veterinary technician at the rehab center sent Elsmo a study describing cases of avian influenza in red foxes in the Netherlands. Examinations of the Wisconsin kit’s tissues under the microscope revealed lesions in the brain, lung and heart that matched what had been seen in the Netherlands animals. “And I thought, I think it is [bird flu],” she recalls.
Additional testing confirmed the diagnosis in the kit and the other foxes, Elsmo and colleagues reported in the December 2023 Emerging Infectious Diseases. The animals had contracted a lethal strain of H5N1 avian influenza that emerged in late 2020 in Europe and has since spread around the world. At the time infections were discovered in the Wisconsin red foxes, bird flu was expanding its incursion into North America.
Since H5N1 arrived on North American shores in December 2021, it has infected animals as wide-ranging as polar bears, skunks, sea lions, bottlenosed dolphins and cows (SN: 7/8/24). And one unwelcome revelation of the ongoing outbreak is the virus’s propensity to invade the brains of myriad mammals.
© Society for Science & the Public 2000–2024.
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https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0www3qvx2zo
Can we change how our brains age? These scientists think it’s possible
By Lara Lewington,
It's long been known that our lifestyles can help to keep us healthier for longer. Now scientists are asking whether new technology can also help slow down the ageing process of our brains by keeping track of what happens to them as we get older.
One sunny morning, 76-year-old Dutch-born Marijke and her husband Tom welcomed me in for breakfast at their home in Loma Linda, an hour east of Los Angeles.
Oatmeal, chai seeds, berries, but no processed sugary cereal or coffee were served - a breakfast as pure as Loma Linda’s mission.
Loma Linda has been identified as one of the world’s so-called Blue Zones, places where people have lengthier-than-average lifespans. In this case, it is the city’s Seventh-Day Adventist Church community who are living longer.
They generally don’t drink alcohol or caffeine, stick to a vegetarian or even vegan diet and consider it a duty of their religion to look after their bodies as best they can.
This is their “health message”, as they call it, and it has put them on the map - the city has been the subject of decades of research into why its residents live better for longer.
Dr Gary Fraser from the University of Loma Linda told me members of the Seventh-Day Adventist community there can expect not only a longer lifespan, but an increased “healthspan” - that is, time spent in good health - of four to five years extra for women and seven years extra for men.
Marijke and Tom had moved to the city later in life, but both were now firmly embedded in the community.
Copyright 2024 BBC.
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