Joyner MJ, Barnes JN, Hart EC, Wallin BG, Charkoudian N.
Compr Physiol. 2015 Jan 1;5(1):193-215.
For reasons I am probably not at liberty to discuss, some of
us in the lab have been discussing the differences in autonomic function
between males and females. So I was pretty happy to see a review that had some
of this information in it. As an added bonus, it discusses these differences
mostly in humans (because we all need to focus on the transnational application of our basic science)
with animal data where no human data was available. Added bonus 2 is that this review comes from
some reputable people, so it’s well-written and easy to understand.
In the review, they touched on a lot of topics, ranging from
how (muscle) sympathetic nerve activity may be correlated with blood pressure
in any given young man, but not from young man to young man, and not at all in
young women. They also included various difficulties in experimental techniques
(conduction speed differences between sympathetic and parasympathetic systems),
neurotransmitter turnover times, and receptor availability/activity with
modulation by different factors. A
couple of interesting things I learned were that even though estrogen is widely
thought to prevent high SNA and blood pressure, conflicting data has also shown
that high estrogen can sometimes correlate with high SNA, and that the age
related changes seen in women after menopause will also occur regardless of
menopause, and may just be related to age.
Confusing stuff.
Anyway, I liked this review a lot. I were running a lab, I
would probably add it to the list of early required reading for new students. –DH
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