Sex differences in brain damage and recovery of function: experimental and clinical findings

Until the last decade or so, there was very little systematic examination of sex differences in recovery from brain injury--most of the work was anecdotal or based on very small studies comparing males to females. This chapter reviews some of the physiological, morphological, and functional evidence for sex differences in response to brain injury across the spectrum of development. It also examines more recent data showing that fluctuations in hormonal status during the menstrual and estrous cycle can play a determining role in functional outcome in both normal and brain-injured females, and that these hormonal influences can be measured at both the cellular and behavioral levels.