Abstract
In response to NIH initiatives to investigate sex as a biological variable in preclinical animal studies, researchers have increased their focus on male and female differences in neurotrauma. Inclusion of both sexes when modeling neurotrauma is leading to the identification of novel areas for therapeutic and scientific exploitation. Here, we review the organizational and activational effects of sex hormones on recovery from injury and how these changes impact the long-term health of spinal cord injury (SCI) patients. When determining how sex affects SCI it remains imperative to expand outcomes beyond locomotor recovery and consider other complications plaguing the quality of life of patients with SCI. Interestingly, the SCI field predominately utilizes female rodents for basic science research which contrasts most other male-biased research fields. We discuss the unique caveats this creates to the translatability of preclinical research in the SCI field. We also review current clinical and preclinical data examining sex as biological variable in SCI. Further, we report how technical considerations such as housing, size, care management, and age, confound the interpretation of sex-specific effects in animal studies of SCI. We have uncovered novel findings regarding how age differentially affects mortality and injury-induced anemia in males and females after SCI, and further identified estrus cycle dysfunction in mice after injury. Emerging concepts underlying sexually dimorphic responses to therapy are also discussed. Through a combination of literature review and primary research observations we present a practical guide for considering and incorporating sex as biological variable in preclinical neurotrauma studies.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
8-5-2020
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.3389/fneur.2020.00802
Funding Information
This funding was supported by The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under Awards: R01NS091582 and F32NS111241.
Related Content
Data underlying findings from these studies will be made publicly available through the spinal cord injury open data commons after acceptance, as well as, by request (https://scicrunch.org/odc-sci).
The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fneur.2020.00802/full#supplementary-material It is also available for download as the first two additional files listed at the end of this record.
The corrigendum of this article is available for download as an additional file listed at the end of this record.
Repository Citation
Stewart, Andrew N.; MacLean, Steven M.; Stromberg, Arnold J.; Whelan, Jessica P.; Bailey, William M.; Gensel, John C.; and Wilson, Melinda E., "Considerations for Studying Sex as a Biological Variable in Spinal Cord Injury" (2020). Physiology Faculty Publications. 159.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/physiology_facpub/159
Notes/Citation Information
Published in Frontiers in Neurology, v. 11, article 802.
© 2020 Stewart, MacLean, Stromberg, Whelan, Bailey, Gensel and Wilson.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.