Neonatal hypoxic risk in preterm birth infants: The influence of sex and severity of respiratory distress on cognitive recovery.

Abstract

The authors examined the differential effects of neonatal respiratory distress syndrome (RDS)--a condition associated with elevated risk for neonatal hypoxia-ischemia--on the cognitive development of the two sexes. The authors also attempted to establish whether the severity of respiratory distress is linked to cognitive outcome. Findings revealed an appreciable female advantage in cognitive recovery from RDS, yet the association between severity of RDS and outcome did not reach conventional statistical significance level. The sex effect on intelligence test performance was significantly greater for nonverbal subtests than for verbal ones. These results augment earlier findings of sex differences in cognitive recovery from perinatal intracranial hemorrhage. The current investigation also extends these results to a population of children at neonatal hypoxic risk for whom early brain injury was excluded on the basis of neonatal cranial ultrasound findings.

Gender Differences in Language and Motor-Related Fibers in a Population of Healthy Preterm Neonates at Term-Equivalent Age: A Diffusion Tensor and Probabilistic Tractography Study

“…Indeed, even if the normality of our preterm population was based on robust structural and clinical criteria, as in previous studies, 48,52 we cannot exclude the possibility that the sex related differences observed in the language and motor networks may have been caused by subtle cerebral lesions, because certain studies seem to suggest that preterm males may be more sensitive to brain injuries than females. 75,76 Therefore, it would be of interest to investigate whether these sex differences are also present in healthy term neonates.…”

Ischemic Nitric Oxide and Poly (ADP-Ribose) Polymerase-1 in Cerebral Ischemia: Male Toxicity, Female Protection

“…However, the hormonal milieu may not fully account for sexual dimorphism in cerebral ischemia (Hurvitz et al, 1999;Vukmir, 2003). Emerging data suggests that cell death in brain may follow differing mechanistic paths depending on gender (Nunez et al, 2001;Lauterbach et al, 2001;Zhang et al, 2003;Schuessel et al, 2004), in addition to sex steroid exposure.…”

Role of P450 Aromatase in Sex-Specific Astrocytic Cell Death

“…However, sexual dimorphism in human stroke risk persists well beyond the menopause (Sacco et al, 1998). Furthermore, female sex is associated with favorable outcome from ischemic stroke in children (Fullerton et al, 2003) and after brain injury in newborns (Lauterbach et al, 2001;Donders and Hoffman, 2002;Ingemarsson, 2003), suggesting that ovarian estradiol may not fully account for the female phenotype.…”