Editorial: The 3 S's: sex, stress, and sleep as risk factors for dementias

The S's: sex, stress, and sleep as risk factors for dementias This Research Topic delves into emerging factors beyond age that may influence the onset and severity of dementia.While age remains a primary factor, recent evidence suggests sex, stress, and sleep play significant roles.Sex differences in disease risk have sparked debate, yet studies indicate varying cognitive decline rates between genders.Stress, whether triggered by lifestyle, environment, or internal factors, impacts overall health and may contribute to dementia development via allostatic load.Irregular sleep patterns, prevalent in aging populations, pose a potential causal link to dementia-related disorders.This research aims to explore and analyze the latest findings on these impactful factors in dementia manifestation and progression.Three articles presented data related with gender and stress in this issue: a comprehensive study on the impact of prolonged social isolation (SIS) during adulthood in female leads to significant enhancements in acquisition skills, it also results in a slight impairment in memory retention, without altering anxiety and cortisol levels (Popovi et al.).Moreover, males may become more prone to inflammatory states, while females are predisposed to oxidative states due to SIS (Oliva et al.).In addition, prolonged social isolation integrates cognitive-behavioral performance with multifractal dynamics of physiological signals along with the accumulation of tau and A proteins in early-onset neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer's disease (Cavieres).These findings underscore the critical role of social interactions in the wellbeing and overall performance of social animals, shedding light on novel avenues for further exploration in the field of neuroscience and behavioral psychology.There is no data about sleep in this issue.However, sleep is increasingly recognized as a critical factor in overall health, with emerging research shedding light on its significant role in the risk of developing dementia.The quantity, quality, sleep pattern, lifestyle factors, and other pathological conditions all contribute to the risk of dementia.For sleeping quantity, insufficient sleep has been linked to an elevated risk of dementia.Hahn et al. (2014) found that reduced sleep time was associated with a staggering 75% increase in the risk of all-cause dementia.Similarly, Sabia et al. (2021) revealed that short sleep duration in midlife is correlated with a heightened risk of late-onset dementia.However, it's not just inadequate sleep that poses a risk.Surprisingly, prolonged sleep duration, defined as combining nighttime sleep with daytime napping totaling 9 h or more, may also be associated with an increased risk of dementia (Benito-Len et al., 2009).