Female brain found to have active regions responsible for pain processing compared to men, a study reveals.
-A recent research conducted by Georgia State University was focussed on studying the affect of an individual’s gender on the morphine analgesia.
-The research studied how a female’s brain immune cells responded to opioid medication compared to that of a man.
-The study suggested the females required almost twice the morphine compared to the males to relieve pain.
-It was observed that when the immune resident cells (microglia) in the female participants were blocked, the females’ response to the opioids improved significantly and paralleled the response observed in the men.
-The researchers also revealed that the females were more prone to chronic and inflammatory pain conditions such as fibromyalgia and osteoarthritis and surprisingly, morphine was found to be less effective in women than men.
Findings were published in the Journal of Neuroscience
Source: Journal of Neuroscience