Publication date: Jul 08, 2026
Therefore, studying sex differences may help identifying disease mechanisms that would be hidden in analyses that pool men and women together. We studied five brain regions and found that PD causes common changes in the brain, regardless of sex. “Their findings show that although some changes in genetic activity are the same in both sexes, there are others that only occur in men, or in women. Our findings help to explain why symptoms and disease progression in Parkinson’s differ between men and women. They found that women with PD had changes to DNA methylation in 69 regions of the genome, compared to only two in men. In oligodendrocytes, the activity of genes involved in making and maintaining the protective coating around nerve fibres (myelin) also differed between sexes. PD is 1. 5- to 2-fold more common in men than women, but the reasons for this difference are not clear.
| Concepts | Keywords |
|---|---|
| Autumn | Activity |
| Colleagues | Brain |
| Germany | Differences |
| Neuroscience | Disease |
| Pesticides | Found |
| Genetic | |
| Hentrich | |
| Men | |
| Parkinson | |
| Professor | |
| Schulze | |
| Sex | |
| Sexes | |
| Specific | |
| Women |
Semantics
| Type | Source | Name |
|---|---|---|
| disease | MESH | Parkinson’s disease |
| drug | DRUGBANK | Nonoxynol-9 |
| pathway | REACTOME | DNA methylation |
| disease | MESH | disease progression |
| drug | DRUGBANK | Tropicamide |