Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA; The University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
Brain Res. 2020 Mar 15;1731:145893. doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2018.07.026. Epub 2018 Aug 3.
Women are twice as likely as men to suffer from stress-related psychiatric disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), however, the biological basis of these sex differences is not fully understood. Interestingly, orexins are known to be dysregulated in these disorders. This review first discusses the important role of orexins regulating the response to stress. Next, we review the evidence for sex differences in the orexin system, in which the majority of both preclinical and clinical studies have reported higher orexin system expression in females. Finally, we discuss the functional consequences of these sex differences in orexin expression. Most importantly, the preclinical literature reveals that higher orexin system activity in females contributes to exaggerated neuroendocrine and behavioral responses to stress. In sum, the available data suggests that orexins may be important in the etiology of stress-related psychiatric disorders that present differently in men and women. Thus, targeting orexins could potentially ameliorate many phenotypes of stress-related illness in a sex-specific way.
女性患与压力相关的精神疾病（如创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）和重度抑郁症（MDD））的可能性是男性的两倍，然而，这些性别差异的生物学基础尚不完全清楚。有趣的是，已知食欲素在这些疾病中失调。这篇综述首先讨论了食欲素在调节应激反应中的重要作用。接下来，我们回顾了食欲素系统中性别差异的证据，其中大多数临床前和临床研究报告女性的食欲素系统表达更高。最后，我们讨论了这些性别差异在食欲素表达中的功能后果。最重要的是，临床前文献表明，女性食欲素系统活性增加会导致对压力的神经内分泌和行为反应过度。总之，现有数据表明，食欲素可能在男性和女性表现不同的与压力相关的精神疾病的发病机制中起重要作用。因此，针对食欲素可能以性别特异性的方式改善与压力相关疾病的许多表型。
