Understanding sex differences among persons with moderate-to-severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) is critical to addressing the unique needs of both males and females from acute care through to rehabilitation. Epidemiological studies suggest that 7 of every 10 persons with moderate-to-severe TBI are male, with females representing about 30%–33%.

To examine the proportion of female and male individuals included in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of interventions for moderate-to-severe TBI.

A systematic review was conducted in line with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines up to and including December 2022 using MEDLINE, PubMed, Scopus, CINAHL, EMBASE and PsycINFO databases. Studies were included if they met the following criteria: (1) human participants with a mean age ≥18 years, (2) ≥50% of the sample had moderate-to-severe TBI and (3) the study design was a RCT. Data extracted included author, year, country, sample size, number of female/male participants and time post-injury.

595 RCTs met the criteria for inclusion, published between 1978 and 2022, totaling 86,662 participants. The average proportion of female participants was 23.14%, and the percentage increased a small but significant amount over time. There was a significantly lower percentage of female participants in RCTs initiated in the acute phase (≤ 1 month) when compared with RCTs conducted in the chronic phase (≥ 6 months) post-injury (p < 0.001).

Female participants are underrepresented in RCTs of moderate-to-severe TBI. Addressing this underrepresentation is critical to establish effective treatments for all persons with TBI.

To map Greek academic otolaryngologists, and assess gender, age and location-related differences in their rank and academic productivity.

A pre-established database of local and diaspora scientists was used, after adjustment and updating for otolaryngology. The following data were recorded: age, gender, academic rank, country of work, total citations and h-index of December 2022.

A total of 276 Greek academic otolaryngologists were identified in the Scopus database. Of Greek otolaryngologists, 15.9 per cent are women. Of all academic otolaryngologists, 27.1 per cent have a university post, but only 4 per cent of them are women. There is an almost linear correlation between university post ranking and citations. Otolaryngologists based in Greece accounted for 3 out of the 10 most cited Greek otolaryngologists.

There are significant age, gender and location-related differences in academic output. The representation of women and the full use of their potential in medicine require proactive measures, to lift the burdens limiting their participation.

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is an etiologically nonspecific diagnosis including a broad spectrum of cognitive decline between normal aging and dementia. Several large-scale cohort studies have found sex effects on neuropsychological test performance in MCI. The primary aim of the current project was to examine sex differences in neuropsychological profiles in a clinically diagnosed MCI sample using clinical and research diagnostic criteria.

The current study includes archival data from 349 patients (age M = 74.7; SD = 7.7) who underwent an outpatient neuropsychological evaluation and were diagnosed with MCI. Raw scores were converted to z-scores using normative datasets. Sex differences in neurocognitive profiles including severity, domain-specific composites (memory, executive functioning/information processing speed, and language), and modality-specific learning curves (verbal, visual) were examined using Analysis of Variance, Chi-square analyses, and linear mixed models. Post hoc analyses examined whether sex effects were uniform across age and education brackets.

Females exhibit worse non-memory domain and test-specific cognitive performances compared to males with otherwise comparable categorical MCI criteria and global cognition measured via screening and composite scores. Analysis of learning curves showed additional sex-specific advantages (visual Males>Females; verbal Females >Males) not captured by MCI subtypes.

Our results highlight sex differences in a clinical sample with MCI. The emphasis of verbal memory in the diagnosis of MCI may result in diagnosis at more advanced stages for females. Additional investigation is needed to determine whether these profiles confer greater risk for progressing to dementia or are confounded by other factors (e.g., delayed referral, medical comorbidities).

Chronic functional gastro-intestinal disorders can affect cognitive functioning of patients (1). Wong et al (2) showed attentional and executive function impairment, Aizawa et al. (3) found impairment of cognitive plasticity and activity of frontal and temporal arias of brain during performing tests in these patients.

Assessing of cognitive functioning of the female patients with chronic functional constipation.

42 Rome IV adult female patients with chronic functional constipation and 26 adult normative female volunteers were tested with Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia (BACS).

Both groups were comparable by age (patients’ group 29,5±6,1, volunteers’ group 28,5±9,6, ns) In both groups subjects demonstrated normal level of cognitive functioning but the scores of the patients were closer to the lower level than the scores of the volunteers. The difference was significant in composite scores and in several other scores (Tab.1). Table1.

The findings of the study once more indicate some link between gastrointestinal dysfunction and cognitive functioning. Even these slight decrease in some aspects of cognition from normal population could have negative impact on everyday functioning. The origin of this link is still under question.

No significant relationships.

The prevalence of ABO alleles in population is different. Many studies confirmed the correlation between the occurrences of some diseases with different genotypes of ABO blood groups. Studies had shown possible differencese between patients with depressive dissorder and bipolar affective disorders according to ABO blood groups. There are contradictory results; some studies had shown significant association between blood group O and BAP, other showed relationship between unipolar depression and blood type O. Others shoedn association between involuntary depression and blood group A and negative association between blood group A and BAP.

The purpose of this study was to reassess the potential diferences between patients with depressive dissorder and bipolar affective disorders according to ABO blood groups.

A total of 97 adult female psychiatric inpatients participated in this study. 57,7% were diagnosed with depressive disorder and 42,3% were diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder. Type of ABO group were measured from the blood samples taken in the morning after 30 min rest. From whole blood, genomic DNA was isolated on QIAcube device (Qiagen, Germany) using QIAamp DNA Blood mini QIAcube kit (Qiagen, Germany). ABO genotyping on 5 basic ABO alleles was performed using allele-specific PCR.

Comparing ABO blood groups between female patients who are suffering from depressive disorders and bipolar affective disorders, we didn’t found any differences. In both examination groups, higher proportion of A blood group was significant.

The results of this study didn’t support the hypothesis of diferences in ABO blood group between depressive disorders and bipolar affective disorders.

No significant relationships.

Sexual orientation is known to have some influence in alcohol consumption patterns and outcomes. Sexual minority women (SMW) are more likely to develop binge drinking and alcohol use disorder than heterossexual women. Because women tend to be more secretive with their drinking and hesitant to get help, and alcohol is particularly harmful to the female body, SMW pose particular challenges.

Review the latest research on alcoholism in SMW, focusing on various specificities of this population.

Literature review in the PubMed database, using the MESH terms “alcohol use disorder”, “women”, “female”, “trans woman”, “adult”. Free full text, publication in the last 5 years, English or Portuguese and article typology filters were applied. Following primary hits, secondary references were checked and a total of 10 articles were included. Results were grouped in epidemiological, etiological, therapeutical and prognostic specificities.

Data indicate that lesbian and bisexual women, compared to heterosexuals, are twice as likely to engage in binge drinking. AUD prevalence and patterns of alcohol use are especially higher among younger SMW. The influence of sexual orientation on alcohol use and related outcomes seems to be greater among women than men. Regarding etiology, internalized stigma, minority stress, victimization experiences, social norms and policies are the main culprits Even though SMW are more likely to report and ask hor help, many do not receive adequate treatment. SMW show an incresed risk of developing other complications, such as physical injuries, sexual assault, liver or cardiac disease.

Sexual minority women are particularly vulnerable to alcohol-related harms. Interventions especially directed to SMW need to be developed.

No significant relationships.

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by the presence of motor and phonic tics. It is at least three times more common in males compared with females; however, the clinical phenomenology between sexes has not been fully examined. We aimed to contrast the clinical features between males and females with TS and chronic tic disorder.

We studied 201 consecutive patients fulfilling the diagnostic criteria for TS, persistent (or chronic) motor and vocal tic disorder and provisional tic disorder that were considered within the TS spectrum disorder. We performed blinded evaluations of video-recordings and retrospectively reviewed the clinical charts of all patients.

Age ranges between 4 and 65 years. Males represented 77.6% of patients in the cohort. Overall, no differences were observed in the frequency, distribution and complexity of tics between sexes, except for a higher frequency of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (P = .003) among males. Patients younger than 18-years old, in addition to a higher frequency of ADHD (P = .026), males had a statistically higher frequency of complex motor tics (P = .049) and earlier age at onset (P = .072) than females in the multivariate regression analysis. However, these differences were lost in patients older than 18 years, due to increased complexity of tics in females with aging.

A sexual dimorphism was observed between patients with TS mainly before age of 18 years, suggesting an earlier onset of some types of tics and ADHD in males compared to females.

Cognitive impairment is consistently reported in bipolar disorder (BD), but few studies have characterised which memory component processes are affected. Further, it is unknown whether the component processes underlying memory impairment are moderated by sex. The present study examined diagnosis and sex differences in both verbal and visual memory/learning domains in patients with BD and psychiatrically healthy controls.

Verbal and visual memory/learning were measured using the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test-Revised (HVLT-R) and Brief Visuospatial Memory Test-Revised (BVMT-R). 114 patients with BD (n = 50 males, n = 64 females), were compared to 105 psychiatrically healthy controls (n = 42 males, n = 63 females).

Patients with BD had worse performance in verbal and visual immediate and total recall, verbal and visual delayed free recall, and verbal recognition discrimination scores, but there were no group differences in learning slopes and cumulative learning index scores. There were trends for BD females to outperform BD males in visual memory/learning free recall and cumulative learning, but these results did not survive multiple testing correction. These findings did not change in a secondary sensitivity analysis comparing only strictly euthymic BD patients to controls (n = 64).

The present study found trait-like verbal and visual memory/learning impairment in BD that was attributable to deficient encoding and/or consolidation processes rather than deficits in learning. We did not find marked sex differences in either visual or verbal memory/learning measures, although some trend level effects were apparent and deserve exploration in future studies.