Neurodegenerative Disease: Roles for Sex, Hormones, and Oxidative Stress

Endocrinology. 2021 Sep 1:bqab185. doi: 10.1210/endocr/bqab185. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTNeurodegenerative diseases cause severe impairments in cognitive and motor function. With an increasing aging population and the onset of these diseases between 50-70 years, the consequences are bound to be devastating. While age and longevity are the main risk factors for neurodegenerative diseases, sex is also an important risk factor. Sex is multifaceted, encompassing sex chromosome complement, sex hormones (estrogens and androgens), and sex hormone receptors. Sex hormone receptors can induce various signaling cascades, ranging from genomic transcription to intracellular signaling pathways that are dependent on the health of the cell. Oxidative stress, associated with aging, can impact the health of the cell. Sex hormones can be neuroprotective under low oxidative stress conditions but not in high oxidative stress conditions. An understudied sex hormone receptor that can induce activation of oxidative stress signaling is the membrane androgen receptor (mAR). mAR can mediate NADPH oxidase (NOX) generated oxidative stress that is associated with several neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease. Further complicating this is that aging can alter sex hormone signaling. Prior to menopause, women experience more estrogens than androgens. During menopause, this sex hormone profile switches in women due to the dramatic ovarian loss of 17β-estradiol with maintained ovarian a...
Source: Endocrinology - Category: Endocrinology Authors: Source Type: research