Sex Differences Extend into the Brain

Rare European Union Split at UN Over Attempt to Shift Agenda to Include Abortion

NEW! India Will Pay Poor Women To Have Girls, Avoid Sex-Selection Abortions

NEW! Brazil Approaches Historic Decision on the Personhood of Embryos

NEW! Doctor’s Day

NEW! Spain's Socialist Government Adopts New Policies in Face of Underpopulation...

SEX DIFFERENCES EXTEND INTO THE BRAIN

While women and men struggle to communicate with each other and ponder why they don’t think and react to things in similar ways, science is proving that the differences in our brains may have more serious implications beyond our everyday social interactions. What was once speculation is now being confirmed by scientists: the brains of women and men are different in more ways than one.

Discoveries by scientists over the past 10 years have elucidated biological sex differences in brain structure, chemistry and function. “These variations occur throughout the brain, in regions involved in language, memory, emotion, vision, hearing and navigation,” explains Larry Cahill, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at the University of California, Irvine.

While women and men struggle to communicate with each other and ponder why they don’t think and react to things in similar ways, science is proving that the differences in our brains may have more serious implications beyond our everyday social interactions.

Scientists are looking into ways that sex-based brain variations affect the thought processes and behavior of men and women differently. According to Cahill, “their discoveries could point the way to sex-specific therapies for men and women with neurological conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, depression, addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder.”

To better understand the implications of sex differences in the brain, it is important to examine disease entities in depth. Take Alzheimer’s disease, for example. Significant differences exist between men and women who suffer from the disease.

“There are growing indications that the disease pathology, and the relationship between pathology and behavioral disturbance, differs significantly between the sexes,” Cahill wrote in a paper published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience. Pathology refers to the way a disease develops within the body.

“Let us first consider Alzheimer’s disease-related pathology. Alzheimer’s disease-related neurofibrillary pathology associated with abnormally phosphorylated tau protein differs in the hypothalamus of men and women: up to 90 percent of older men show this pathology, whereas it is found in only 8-10 percent of age-matched women.”

In other words, abnormalities caused by Alzheimer’s disease may differ between the sexes and result in different symptoms or behavioral problems for women and men with the disease.

There are several other notable differences in pathology between the sexes in Alzheimer’s disease. Gaining a better understanding of the relationship between pathology and how disease presentation affects men and women differently could pave the path for future sex-specific therapies.

Schizophrenia is another disease that affects men and women differently. Differences include age of onset, symptoms and the time course of the disease. In addition, structural brain differences are apparent. According to Cahill, “men with schizophrenia show significantly larger ventricles than do healthy men, whereas no such enlargement is seen in women with schizophrenia.”

Researchers do not understand the implications of these differences yet, but the study of sex differences in the brain is advancing quickly. Aiding researchers in their work is a new guidebook for investigating sex differences in the brain. Published by Oxford University Press, “Sex Differences in the Brain: From Genes to Behavior” provides scientists with the basic tools for investigating sex differences in brain and behavior and insight into areas where important progress in understanding physiologically relevant sex differences has already been made.

The book is edited by members of the Society for Women’s Health Research’s Isis Fund Network on Sex, Gender, Drugs and the Brain.

“Scientific evidence of sex differences in the brain is regularly emerging now,” said Sherry Marts, Ph.D., author of the book’s preface and vice president of scientific affairs for the Society for Women’s Health Research. “This book outlines current knowledge, conceptual approaches, methodological capabilities, and challenges to continued progress. It is an important tool in the quest to turn the science of sex differences into appropriate care for all patients both male and female.”

As researchers continue to explain how sex influences brain function, we will see more diagnostic tools and therapies that successfully account for the biological differences between women and men. That will mean better health outcomes for all patients.
[29-Feb-2008, http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/538212/?sc=dwhn; Jennifer Wider, M.D., Society for Women’s Health Research, Newswise, http://www.newswise.com/institutions/view/?id=700]

RARE EUROPEAN UNION SPLIT AT UN OVER ATTEMPT TO SHIFT AGENDA TO INCLUDE ABORTION: Secretary-General refers to "greatest resource for development: mothers raising children”. The governments of Poland and Malta broke ranks with the European Union on the question of abortion this week. The dissention occurred at the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) which convened it’s annual two-week meeting at UN headquarters in New York on Monday. The reaction of Poland and Malta happened after the EU tried to shift the meeting’s agenda to include the right to abortion.

On Tuesday Radoslaw Mleczko, the Polish Under-Secretary of State in the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy, told the gathering of UN Member States that Poland generally aligned itself with the EU but that any EU reference to sexual and reproductive health could not include abortion.

On Thursday afternoon, the head of Malta’s mission to the UN, Ambassador Saviour F. Borg said, “Malta would like to clarify its position with respect to the language relating to sexual and reproductive health and rights in the [EU] statement. Malta firmly continues to maintain that any position taken or recommendations made regarding women’s empowerment and gender equality should not in any way create an obligation on any party to consider abortion as a legitimate form of reproductive health rights, services or commodities.”

The split in the European Union is significant because the EU hardly ever splits on questions of social policy at the UN. Even countries that are generally anti-abortion go along with the more radical approach taken by the United Kingdom, France and Germany. They do this as an agreement that the EU will always work out their differences behind closed doors and present a united front at UN negotiations.

The agreement works to the advantage of the pro-abortion states since they outnumber the anti-abortion states. Moreover, an EU that is divided is one that can be defeated on social policy questions. In fact, the last time the EU split in any significant way was during the UN cloning debate which resulted in the UN calling for the ban on all forms of human cloning, an effort opposed by the UK, France, Germany and other left-wing European governments. It is unclear how meaningful this current split will be in the negotiations which will begin in earnest tomorrow.

Pro-life and pro-family issues were also woven into UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s opening remarks to the commission on Monday when he criticized the now widespread practice of choosing abortions based on the sex of the baby, an issue that was all but taken off the agenda at last year’s CSW despite solid support from both civil society and numerous governmental delegations. In his speech to launch the new UN multi-year campaign to end violence against women, the Secretary-General stressed, “Through the practice of prenatal sex selection, countless others are denied the right even to exist. No country, no culture, no woman young or old is immune to this scourge.”

The Secretary-General also highlighted the importance of families and children stating, “We know that violence against women compounds the enormous social and economic toll on families, communities, even whole nations. And we know that when we work to eradicate violence against women, we empower our greatest resource for development: mothers raising children.”

Among the many pro-life and pro-family lobbyists attending the CSW is a large contingent of high school girls from Overbrook Academy in Rhode Island. Fourteen year old Elsa Corripio told the Friday Fax, “We want these delegates to know that there are many young people who believe in respecting life.” Ana Paola Rangel, 15, added, “Maybe we can’t change the world, but we know we can make a difference.”

The CSW meeting continues through the first week of March08. [28Feb08, C-Fam.org, Samantha Singson, New York; LifeSiteNews.com]

INDIA WILL PAY POOR WOMEN TO HAVE GIRLS, AVOID SEX-SELECTION ABORTIONS. To combat the ever-worsening gender ratio in India, government officials are unveiling a new plan to pay poor women and their families to avoid sex-selection abortions and infanticides.

Authorities hope the payments will stop the estimated 500,000 deaths of girl babies from both practices.

The cash payments will send approximately 15,500 rupees (or about $384 US) to families. Although the amount appears small by Western standards, it's a huge sum of money to poor Indian families.

The Indian government says it hopes as many as 100,000 girls will be saved from the deadly practices in the first year alone in the trial program, which begins in seven states.

As additional incentive, girls who become 18 get will another 100,000 rupees ($2,500 US) if they have completed their education and have not yet been married.

According to a London Guardian report, Renuka Chowdhury, the women and children development minister, talked with the media about the new program.

"We will pay the money in stages and monitor how they are brought up," she said. "We think this will force the families to look upon the girl as an asset rather than a liability and will certainly help us save the girl child."

Some detractors questioned what effect the plan would have in more wealthy areas of the Asian nation, where prosperous families can afford to pay black market prices for ultrasounds and secret abortions.

"It is the urban middle classes who can also afford the ultrasound tests to determine the sex of the foetus," anti-infanticide activist Sabu George told the Guardian. "That is really the problem. The poor are copying the behavior of the richer people in India."

Even in poor communities, some families would rather pay two months' salary for an illegal ultrasound and abortion rather than years' worth of income on expensive dowries.

Officials in India have been working overtime to try to halt the practices, but the illegal use of ultrasounds continues and is allowing parents to kill unwanted girl babies.

The skewed male-female ratio in India reflects a trend of having smaller families.

Couples are choosing to have only one child and deciding to only have a boy. India follows the beliefs of other Asian nations in favoring boys to carry on work and family names and because girls must have expensive dowries upon their marriage.

In December 2006, a new report by UNICEF indicated 7,000 fewer female babies are born every day because parents can determine the sex of their unborn baby and kill her before birth. In 80 percent of India's districts, a higher percentage of boys are born now than a decade ago.

The report cites the increased availability of cheap ultrasound technology as playing a role despite attempts by the India government to crack down on its use.

UNICEF says the resulting gender imbalance from sex selection abortions is particularly prevalent in the wealthier regions of the nation where access to the ultrasound technology is easier.

UNICEF based the findings on Indian census data and they follow a report in early 2006 from the British medical journal Lancet, which estimated that 10 million baby girls have probably been aborted in the last 20 years. [3March08, Ertelt, LifeNews.com
New Delhi, India]



BRAZIL APPROACHES HISTORIC DECISION ON THE PERSONHOOD OF EMBRYOS: Despite overwhelming Pro-Life majority, media predicts decision against life. The Supreme Court of Brazil will issue a decision on March 5th on the personhood of human embryos, and in the process will determine if scientists will be permitted to kill them in the process of medical research.

The dispute before the court regards the fifth article of the nation's Biosecurity Law, which authorizes scientific experiments on embryonic stem cells. Such research results in the deaths of countless human embryos, and, unlike adult stem cell research, has not produced a single cure.

The current president of the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops (CNBB), Geraldo Lyrio Rocha, warned in a press release that a decision that allowed embryos to be destroyed would open the door to abortion, and denounced the tactics used to promote the practice: "To save one and kill another is not the answer".

Fr. Luiz Carlos Lodi da Cruz, a well-known Brazilian pro-life activist, says that proponents of embryonic stem cell research consistently ignore the issue of the humanity of the unborn.

"It's interesting to note that none of the speakers favoring the destruction of embryos dared to say that they are not individual human beings," wrote Lodi da Cruz recently in the online journal Media Without a Mask. "What's more, they said that they 'don't know.' In a general way, they tried to say that that question is unimportant from the perspective of curing degenerative diseases through the use of embryonic stem cells."

"But as they were debating with high-caliber pro-life scientists, they couldn't use the deceptive propaganda in the Supreme Court that they used in the Chamber (of Deputies) or Senate. They were constrained to admit that up to now no one has been cured with embryonic stem cell transplants, at the same time that research with adult stem cells (that do not require the destruction of embryos) had had great therapeutic success."  [3March08, M.C. Hoffman, Brasilia, LifeSiteNews.com]

DOCTOR'S DAY. The Christian Medical & Dental Associations calls on other health care organizations, churches, patients, family and friends to celebrate Doctor’s Day, March 30, 2008.

National Doctor’s Day is a dedicated day to recognize the contributions and dedication physicians and dentists make to our society. It provides an opportunity for patients to show their appreciation to the doctors who care for them and their loved ones.

“Every Christian doctor is a medical missionary. They may not serve in a foreign country, but each day they have dozens of intimate conversations with patients who do not have a relationship with God. Doctors have an opportunity to influence their patients through their lives and counsel just as Christ did as He healed the sick,” states CEO of the Christian Medical & Dental Associations David Stevens, MD.

Hard work, stress and sacrifice with years of study and training, often at great financial cost denote the profile of doctors. Many must cope with the conflicting demands of work and family and enduring long and unpredictable hours. Christian Medical & Dental Associations recognizes the great cost of being a doctor and calls on communities to acknowledge the sacrifices they make.

Recognizing your doctor can be done in several ways including sending a note of appreciation, praying for them on a regular basis, sending flowers or having a church re-commissioning service. Find out additional ways you can recognize the doctors in your life by visiting our website at www.cmda.org/DoctorsDay.

The first Doctor's Day celebration was held on March 30, 1933 – recognizing the date on which Dr. Crawford W. Long first used ether as an anesthetic agent in 1842 to remove a cyst.

In honor of America's physicians, the Congress, by Senate Joint Resolution 366 (Public Law 101-473), designated March 30, 1991 as "National Doctors Day". The President signed the proclamation in the same year.
[Bristol, TN—March 10, 2008]
 

SPAIN'S SOCIALIST GOVERNMENT ADOPTS NEW POLICIES IN FACE OF UNDERPOPULATION. The socialist government of Spain has surprised everyone by adopting a pro-natal policy.

Each newborn will receive a check for Euro 2,500 (about 3,938 dollars).

If the newborn is born into a family with three or more children, the amount is increased to Euro 3,500.

In announcing the policy, President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said to the Parliament that "In order to continue progressing Spain needs more families with more children. And families need more aid to have more babies and more resources for their upbringing." Even a blind man could see that this is so.

In only 30 years, the average size of the Spanish family has dropped from 3.8 members to 2.9.

Today, two and a half million Spanish people live alone. There are now only about 1.7 million large Spanish families--that is, families with three or more children--and the number is steadily falling.

Along with Italy and Greece, Spain has one of the lowest fertility rates in the EU. Spain's population is again rapidly, and is on the cusp of absolute population decline.

In 1996 Spain added only 11,177 people to its population. Since that year, the numbers have gone up, but only because immigrants from Latin America and North Africa are having children. [18Mar08, LifeNews.com, Carlos Beltramo]