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Big surprise. Men and women react differently to stress . Researchers focused on an area of the brain called the hypothalamus, which has a number of functions, among them helping the body adjust to stressful situations, controlling hunger and satiety, and regulating blood glucose and energy production. When stress hits, cells in the hypothalamus step up production of a receptor. It was known that this receptor contributes to the rapid activation of a stress-response sympathetic nerve network – increasing heart rate, for example. But since this area of the brain also regulates the body’s exchange of materials, the team thought that the receptor might play a role in this, as well.  The receptor is expressed in around half of the cells that arouse appetite and suppress energy consumption. After some pretty complicated experiments involving mice and the receptor, researchers found that male and female bodies may exhibit significant differences in the ways that materia...

We all know men are babies when it comes to pain (sorry, guys!).  But there may be a reason for it. A new study has revealed that the pain "circuitry" of men and women is different.  According to newswise.com, new research released today reveals for the first time that pain is processed in male and female mice using different cells. "Research has demonstrated that men and women have different sensitivity to pain and that more women suffer from chronic pain than men, but the assumption has always been that the wiring of how pain is processed is the same in both sexes,” says co-senior author Jeffrey Mogil, Ph.D., E.P. Taylor professor of pain studies at McGill University and director of the Alan Edwards Centre for Research on Pain. I've been through major cancer surgery, many surgical biopsies, a c-section, eight stitches from falling and cutting my eye while running, and now am dealing with a kidney stone.  My husband, who had laser knee surgery years ago (...

Now I'm really depressed. A new study finds that job authority increases depression in women, and decreases them in men. Can't we ever catch a break?! “Women with job authority — the ability to hire, fire, and influence pay — have significantly more symptoms of depression than women without this power,” said Tetyana Pudrovska, an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin and the lead author of the study, at newswise.com. “In contrast, men with job authority have fewer symptoms of depression than men without such power.” I guess I could see why.  Women -- or at least I -- agonize over difficult decisions like having to tell someone they're not performing, or firing them.  I won't say men do it without even thinking about it, but I bet it's quite different for them. Maybe it's because we tend to have the empathic skills (or are too sensitive?). According to Pudrovska, women without job authority ...

We've been called the weaker sex .  But did you know we're really the survivors?  And it all has to do with placenta. A University of Adelaide research team has been studying the underlying genetic and developmental reasons why male babies generally have worse outcomes than females, with significantly increased rates of pregnancy complications and poor health outcomes for males, according to newswise.com. "Our research has found that there are undeniable genetic and physiological differences between boys and girls that extend beyond just the development of their sexual characteristics," the Web site quotes senior author of the paper Professor Claire Roberts , leader of the fetal growth research priority for the Robinson Research Institute . "We've known for some time that girls are clearly winning in the battle for survival, with markedly better outcomes for female babies for preterm birth, stillbirth, neonatal death, and other complications afte...

If you're a certain age you know the expression, "Vive la difference!"  And if you're not, it means, well, thank goodness for boys and girls, and all their differences. But now scientists are finding that the incongruities between the sexes are even more dramatic than anyone knew. We're talking cells, sex cells .  Not sex sells, but sex cells.  You know, the things researchers use to figure out how to cure diseases and find therapies for different illnesses.   "There is now good reason to consider that studies conducted in male cells will produce results different from those of identical studies using female cell lines,"  Cathy Fuller, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Cell, Developmental and Integrative Biology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, tells newswise.com.  "This could have a profound effect on fields such as personalized medicine.” Not long ago, the world learned that medications have different effects on me...

Oxytocin's responsible for a lot of things.  It's there in childbirth, child-making, breast-feeding.  Many important roles for this hormone. But now studies are finding that it may also be responsible for monogamy -- or keeping marriages together, as well as orgasm, social recognition, pair bonding and maternal behaviors.  It's the bonding part of oxytocin that has marriage counselors -- and marriage partners -- excited.  Turns out, according to a story at medicalnewstoday.com, this "love hormone" also "stimulates the reward center in the male brain, increasing partner attractiveness and strengthening monogamy." How's that again? Scientists say that monogamy is not a natural state for mammals.  So they set out to discover why. A simple experiment was conducted with heterosexual men in a long-term relationship who were shown photos of their partners, then photos of other women. When a spray of oxytocin was unleashed into participants' n...

It used to be kept in the dark, people who felt they were born the wrong gender.  No one talked about it and certainly, no one ever who had transgender surgery went on TV to show how it went (think: Chaz Bono). But Germany -- not a country I normally think of as forward-thinking -- has just passed a law that parents do not have to register the sex of babies born with both male and female traits. "The council had argued, among other things, that many people born with both sex characteristics who were operated on as children say they wouldn't have consented to the surgery," yahoonews.com reports. I remember seeing a documentary about twin boys, one of whom had some kind of gender abnormality (can't remember what it was) so the mother had surgery done to turn him into a female and the boy suffered all his life.  It probably wouldn't have been so bad if his twin hadn't been there every day to remind him of what once was, but it was heartbreakingly clear wha...

A fascinating op-ed in The New York Times today.  Do kids like male or female teachers better?  The writer has a unique perspective.  She used to be a man. Jennifer Finney Boylan writes that a recent study found that " girls were more likely to report that they did not think a class would be useful to their future if it was taught by a man, and boys were more likely to say they did not look forward to a particular subject if it was taught by a woman." Say what? Boylan goes on to note that m any scholars suggest that other variables, "like a teacher’s experience and the number of students in his or her class, are much more important to students’ success. And yet the way we relate to our students and our teachers surely has something to do with whether we are male or female." She writes poignantly, " When I began teaching, I was a young man fresh out of graduate school. I know I felt more comfortable being funny in the classroom back then; as a woman I s...