Research Finds Males and Females Process Chronic Pain Differently

New findings indicate that the pain mechanisms of male and female mammals differ enough to cause disparity in research, leading to proposals that test subjects be divided by gender to accurately gauge average effects. Researchers with the University of Alabama at Birmingham published their study in the journal Nature Neuroscience indicating that the common belief of hormones affecting pain tolerance is false, and that the biological pain mechanisms differ between the sexes entirely. “Given that women greatly outnumber men as sufferers of chronic pain, one might wonder why it is that this sex difference was not noted until now,” explained the lead author of the study. “The reason is that, as in most pain research, the overwhelming majority of the studies of microglia and pain were performed only on male rats and mice. The current findings from this paper are an excellent example of the wisdom of this policy. Introducing female animals into research will ensure that we can identify problems and conditions that may be mechanistically differently in each sex.” To learn more about this study, click here.