The Influence of Gender on Diseases of the Nervous System: A Narrative Review

Diseases of the nervous system, in addition to the limitations they create for the patient, bring a lot of economic and social costs.Despite a lot of efforts to treat these injuries, it is still challenging to improve and fully recover the patients.Following neurological disorders, a series of events such as inflammation, increased oxidative stress, and damage spreading occur, which can lead to neuronal mitochondrial damage, protein degradation, and cell apoptosis.Investigating the role of gender, as a biological variable, is of great importance in research studies.The development of sex-specific therapies may improve our ability to treat the nervous system diseases.Therefore, the purpose of this review study is to investigate the role of gender in neurological diseases.In the present review, articles published in the scientific databases such as Google Scholar, PubMed, Scopus, and Science Direct were reviewed and analyzed according to various keywords including gender, nervous system diseases, sex hormones, and gender differences in the incidence and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.Gender differences lead to differences in the functioning and response to stimuli in the nervous system.As a result, in different nervous system diseases, the prevalence and symptoms of the disease and the rate and speed of response to treatment in men and women can be different.In this article, the role of gender as a biological variable in nervous system diseases is emphasized.Comparison of genders can pave the way for the development of personalized medicine and treatment methods in nervous system lesions.