WOMEN - Why women cope better with stress than men

Why women cope better with stress than men: Oestrogen helps to block negative effects on the brain

• -  US researchers test brains of male and female rats in stressful situations
• -  Females showed no impairment - males struggled with short-term memory
• -  Study finds oestrogen can help block the detrimental effects of stress
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By NICK MCDERMOTT, SCIENCE REPORTER

PUBLISHED: 00:08 GMT, 10 July 2013 | UPDATED: 06:34 GMT, 10 July 2013

Relaxed: The research suggests women are better at coping with stressful environments

Multi-tasking mothers have known it for years – women are better at coping with stress than men.

Now scientists believe they can tell them why.

It’s all down to the protective effect of oestrogen, which appears to ‘block’ the negative effects of stress on the brain.

In a US study, scientists put male and female rats through tasks that mimicked challenging experiences humans often face, such as those causing frustration and feelings of being under pressure.

The female rats showed no impairment in their ability to recognise objects they had previously been shown, said study leader Dr Zhen Yan, while the male rats struggled with their short-term memory.

An inability to remember a familiar object indicates a disturbance in the part of the brain that controls working memory, attention, decision-making and other high-level ‘executive’ processes.

‘Previous studies have found that females are more resilient to chronic stress and now our research has found the reason why,’ said Dr Yan, a professor in the department of physiology and biophysics at the University of Buffalo. 

‘We have examined the molecular mechanism underlying gender-specific effects of stress.’

Earlier research by the professor found that repeated stress resulted in this area of the brain being damaged in young male rats. But the latest study found that it remained intact in females, even after they were subjected to stress.

Stressed out: A study of rats found males struggled with their short-term memory in stressful situations

And by exposing the male rodents to greater levels of oestrogen, the team found they were protected from the effects of pressure. ‘When oestrogen signalling in the brains of females was blocked, stress exhibited detrimental effects on them,’ said Dr Yan.

‘When oestrogen signalling was activated in males, the detrimental effects of stress were blocked.

‘We still found the protective effect of oestrogen in female rats whose ovaries were removed. It suggests that it might be oestrogen produced in the brain that protects against the detrimental effects of stress.’

The team found that levels of an enzyme linked to the production of oestrogen, known as aromatase, is responsible for female stress resilience. Higher concentrations were found in the brains of female rats, they reported in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

‘If we could find compounds similar to oestrogen that could be administered without causing hormonal side effects, they could prove to be a very effective treatment for stress-related problems in males,’ Dr Yan said.