Journal of neurotrauma
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Journal of neurotrauma · Feb 2004
Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical TrialRelationships between cerebrospinal fluid markers of excitotoxicity, ischemia, and oxidative damage after severe TBI: the impact of gender, age, and hypothermia.
Excitotoxicity and ischemia can result in oxidative stress after TBI. Female sex hormones are hypothesized to be neuroprotective after TBI by affecting multiple mechanisms of secondary injury, including oxidative damage, excitotoxicity and ischemia. Ca2+ mediated oxidative stress increases with age, and hypothermia is known to attenuate secondary injury. ⋯ These results indicate that females have smaller oxidative damage loads than males for a given excitotoxic or ischemic insult and female gonadal hormones may play a role in mediating this neuroprotective effect. These results also suggest that susceptibility to glutamate mediated oxidative damage increases with age and that hypothermia differentially attenuates CSF glutamate versus F2-isoprostane production. Gender and age differences in TBI pathophysiology should be considered when conducting clinical trials in TBI.