Brain and gender: possible implications in the development of new therapeutic strategies

Clinical analyses indicate that some sex differences can be observed in human brain function and cyto-architecture, possibly leading to gender peculiarities in the incidence and outcome of mental diseases. These findings may be relevant for the identification of new therapeutic strategies in psychiatry. However, the present analysis highlights that the research on the development of gender specific antipsychotic drugs need to be optimized. Indeed, the reliability of animal models used to evaluate the efficacy of antipsychotic drugs should be further investigated when gender differences are taken into account. Moreover, the use of the Positive and Negative Symptoms Scale (PANSS) in randomized clinical trials may be not fully adequate to identify gender differences in the efficacy of antipsychotic drugs.