Sex Difference in Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer's disease is the most common neurodegenerative disease, characterized by progressive cognitive decline and dementia and coupled with accumulation of brain amyloid-ß and tau aggregates. there is no effective treatment available to slow or halt the fatal progression of Alzheimer's disease. The risk and severity of Alzheimer's disease is more pronounced in women than in men, but the mechanisms of sex variance are still poorly understood. To define the molecular architecture of sex-dependent responses, we profile the gene expression in hundreds of thousands of male and female brain cells with and without the Alzheimer's disease, and relate these profiles to genome variation of Alzheimer's risk. The biological significance and mechanism of the most prominent sex-specific genes and therapeutic interventions will be studied in mouse models of Alzheimer's disease.