Adverse impact of female reproductive signaling on age-dependent neurodegeneration after mild head trauma in <i>Drosophila</i>.

ABSTRACT: Environmental insults, including mild head trauma, significantly increase the risk of neurodegeneration. However, it remains challenging to establish a causative connection between early-life exposure to mild head trauma and late-life emergence of neurodegenerative deficits, nor do we know how sex and age compound the outcome. Using a Drosophila model, we demonstrate that exposure to mild head trauma causes neurodegenerative conditions that emerge late in life and disproportionately affect females. Increasing age-at-injury further exacerbates this effect in a sexually dimorphic manner. We further identify sex peptide signaling as a key factor in female susceptibility to post-injury brain deficits. RNA sequencing highlights a reduction in innate immune defense transcripts specificall

SUBMITTER: Ye C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11364438 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature