Lead: Gillian Einstein
Program Manager: Shreeya Ramana
Our goal is to work with CCNA’s research teams to ensure that relevant sex and gender research questions will be studied across the spectrum of neurodegeneration in both human and animal model studies.
By using this lens, CCNA’s research teams can capture important sex and gender differences in the prevalence, incidence, symptoms, and progression of neurodegenerative diseases. For example, these differences may be due to biological and physiological variations between the sexes, and/or gender differences in roles, occupations, environmental exposures, and other life experiences. Understanding sex and gender differences and how they interact is critical for developing interventions for both the prevention and treatment of neurodegeneration.
Objectives
- Creating guidelines to ensure that the data collected in the COMPASS-ND study, a clinical cohort study, will enable teams to examine sex and gender differences in the 1600 cohort participants.
- Ensuring that each sex will be equally represented in all of the neurodegenerative conditions within the clinical cohort.
- Working with the teams using animal models to support the inclusion of both male and female experimental animals, to ensure generalizability of the findings to both sexes.
- Ensuring that every CCNA publication and presentation reports sex differences in human participants, cell lines, and experimental animals (mandated through the Publications and Data Access Policy).
Grant writing resource: how to incorporate sex and gender in research
Publication sample:
Women, Sex, Gender and Dementia Cross-Cutting Program: Phase II Publications D’Amico D, Parrott MD, Greenwood CE, Ferland G, Gaudreau P, Belleville S, Laurin D, Anderson ND, Kergoat M, Morais JA, Presse N, Fiocco AJ (2020). Sex differences in the relationship between dietary pattern adherence and cognitive function among older adults: Findings from the NuAge study. BMC Nutrition Journal, 19(1):58.
Gervais NJ, Au A, Almey A, Duchesne A, Gravelsins L, Brown A, Reuben R, Baker-Sullivan E, Schwartz DH, Evans K, Bernardini MQ, Eisen A, Meschino WS, Foulkes WD, Hampson E, Einstein G (2020). Cognitive markers of dementia risk in middle-aged women with bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy prior to menopause. Neubiology of Aging, 94, 1-6.
McFall,GP, Bäckman L, Dixon RA (2019). Nuances in Alzheimer’s Genetic Risk Reveal Differential Predictions of Non-demented Memory Aging Trajectories: Selective Patterns by APOE Genotype and Sex. Current Alzheimer Research. 16(4):302‐315.
Sourial N, Vedel I, Godard-Sebillotte C, Etches J, Arsenault-Lapierre G, Bronskill SE (2020). Sex Differences in Dementia Primary Care Performance and Health Service Use: A Population-Based Study. Journal American Geriatrics Society. 68(5):1056‐1063.
Thibeau S, McFall GP, Camicioli R, Dixon, RA (2019). Physical Activity and Mobility Differentially Predict Nondemented Executive Function Trajectories: Do Sex and APOE Moderate These Associations?. Gerontology. 65(6):640‐648.
Trenaman SC, Rideout M, Andrew MK (2019). Sex and gender differences in polypharmacy in persons with dementia. SAGE Open Medicine. 22;7:2050312119845715.
Ursenbach J, O’Connell ME, Kirk A, Morgan D (2020). Evidence for measurement bias of the short form health survey based on sex and metropolitan influence zone in a secondary care population. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes. 18(1):91.
Tierney MC, Curtis AF, Chertkow H, Rylett RJ. (2017) Integrating sex and gender into neurodegeneration research: A six-component strategy. Alzheimer’s & Dementia, 3(4):660-667.
Related Documents:
Sex and Gender Training Resources for CCNA Trainees and Researchers