Material below is adapted from the SfN Short Course The Stress Response: Sex-Specific Neural Mechanisms, by Debra A. Bangasser and Kimberly R. Wiersielis. Short Courses are daylong scientific trainings on emerging neuroscience topics and research techniques held the day before SfN’s annual meeting.
There are well-established differences in the rates of psychiatric disorders, such as major depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, which disproportionately affect women, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and schizophrenia, which more often affect men. Stress can also increase the severity of these disorders. Researchers are investigating how sex differences in stress responses might influence the development and progression of psychiatric disorders. One possible driver of sex differences in responses is corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF), a hormone produced by the hypothalamus that activates the body’s stress response.
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