A recent study revealed that sex plays a major role in many neurological and psychiatric disorders like hypertension, diabetes, arthritis.

Depression and anxiety affect females more, while neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism spectrum disorders, early-onset schizophrenia, and attention deficit hyperactivity, affect more males. Neurodevelopmental disorders is a disorder of brain function that affects emotion, learning ability, self-control and memory and that unfolds as an individual develops and grows. To understand the molecular underpinnings of this disparity, the researchers at the University of Maryland focused on a molecule that plays a key role in placental health.

The researchers focused on the links between stress and subsequent risk for neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism and schizophrenia. Males are also more sensitive to prenatal insults, such as gestational stress, maternal infection and drug exposure. The findings appeared in the Journal of Nature Communications.