Female brains better adapted to starvation survival

January 17, 5:35 PMScience News ExaminerMeg Marquardt

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When it comes to keeping brains alive, it seems nature has deemed that females are more valuable then males. [Eurekalert]  Published in this week's Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC), researchers from Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center showed that neurons (the most essential cells in the brain) survive starvation in a sex-dependant manner. 

While many cultured (meaning grown in dishes outside the brain) neurons from female rats managed to survive extended starvation from nutrients, neurons from males had a much harder time.  "After 24 hours, the male neurons experienced significantly more cell dysfunction (measured by analyzing cell respiration, which decreased by over 70% in male cells compared to 50% in female cells) and death." [Eurekalert]

Sex-dependant differences in cell survival is not a new concept, but it has never been shown in brain cells before.  Early studies in nutrient-rich areas of the body (such as in the muscle or liver) showed "the male preferences to conserve protein and female preferences to conserve fat." [Eurekalert]  

This process was seen visually by the researchers in neurons as well.  The picture below shows female neurons (left panel) actively working to process new lipid droplets to store fat (bright green), the male neurons (right panel) began to undergo a process of self-cannibalization known as autophagy (red) in a failed attempt to stay alive.

Photo credit Robert S.B. Clark.

While researchers caution that these results may not show precisely what happens in the brain during starvation, it sheds some light onto the mystery.  Learning what processes allow a female's cells to better survive may lead to treatments for those people who suffer from some diseases that induce starvation.