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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Aging Neurosci.
Sec. Neurocognitive Aging and Behavior
Volume 16 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2024.1508801
This article is part of the Research Topic Lifestyle and Healthy Aging to Prevent Cognitive Decline and Dementia View all 23 articles

Sex in aging matters: Exercise and chronic stress differentially impact females and males across the lifespan

Provisionally accepted
D Gregory Sullens D Gregory Sullens 1Kayla Gilley Kayla Gilley 1,2Luke E Moraglia Luke E Moraglia 1,3Sarah Dison Sarah Dison 1Jessica T Hoffman Jessica T Hoffman 1Madison B Wiffler Madison B Wiffler 1,4Robert C. Barnes Robert C. Barnes 1,5Annie T. Ginty Annie T. Ginty 1Melanie J. Sekeres Melanie J. Sekeres 1,6*
  • 1 Baylor University, Waco, Texas, United States
  • 2 Liberty University, Lynchburg, Virginia, United States
  • 3 The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, Texas, United States
  • 4 The University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, United States
  • 5 Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Lubbock, Texas, United States
  • 6 University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Assessing sex as a biological variable is critical to determining the influence of environmental and lifestyle risks and protective factors mediating behavior and neuroplasticity across the lifespan. We investigated sex differences in affective behavior, memory, and hippocampal neurogenesis following short-or long-term exposure to exercise or chronic mild stress in young and aged mice. Male and female mice were assigned control, running, or chronic stress rearing conditions for one month (young) or for 15 months (aged), then underwent a behavioral test battery to assess activity, affective behavior, and memory. Stress exposure into late-adulthood increased hyperactivity in both sexes, and enhanced anxiety-like and depressive-like behavior in aged female, but not male, mice. One month of stress or running had no differential effects on behavior in young males and females. Running increased survival of BrdU-labelled hippocampal cells in both young and aged mice, and enhanced spatial memory in aged mice. These findings highlight the importance of considering sex when determining how aging is differently impacted by modifiable lifestyle factors across the lifespan.

    Keywords: Aging, sex differences, Running, stress, Memory, anxiety-like behavior, hyperactivity

    Received: 09 Oct 2024; Accepted: 30 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Sullens, Gilley, Moraglia, Dison, Hoffman, Wiffler, Barnes, Ginty and Sekeres. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Melanie J. Sekeres, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.