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Interestingly, XX/XY organoids showed sex-biased gene and protein expression!

Estradiol/induced gene and protein changes were also present in a sex-specific manner - with magnitude of effects differing depending on cell line.

Such fascinating work 👏 Thank you so much @ncndgroup.bsky.social!!

So how well do organoids capture sex differences during neurodevelopment?

@ncndgroup.bsky.social found that organoids generated from XX vs XY cell lines were generally similar across gross morphology, tissue patterning, and synaptic/network development.

Using human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs), gene editing can result in different neurons, glial cells, and organoids.

@ncndgroup.bsky.social have been using cerebral organoids as a model system to study brain development 🧠

Why should we care about biological sex? Not only do females make up >50% of the population - they also show greater prevalence across multiple disorders. There are also sex differences in susceptibility and treatment response to diseases.

Some of these diffs may have originated from development 🔍

HC also lowered levels of an anti-inflammatory cytokine, IL-4. IL-10 was also reduced in HC-treated rats, but only in adolescent rats.

These unique signatures in adolescent HC-treated rats highlight age-specific effects of HC and point to potential targets for future research and interventions.

Jesse identified different patterns of how brain regions were activated in response to stress with HC treatment.

The amygdala was highly influential within the brain network of HC-treated rats. The frontal cortex was less influential only within the network of HC-treated adolescent rats!

6) Last but not least, Jesse Lacasse is up!

Why are adolescents seemingly more vulnerable to depression associated with hormonal contraceptive (HC) use? We can look at biomarkers of depression to get at this question, including HPA axis regulation, functional connectivity, and neuroinflammation.

Future studies incorporating larger samples and more intensive repeated measures (i.e. longitudinal studies) will be important to provide more insight in these relationships.

5) Melanie Kowalczyk examined women who were taking oral contraceptives (OCs) and those who were not (thus had natural menstrual cycles).

OC use was not linked to daily anxiety levels - but was linked to higher levels of daily depression and lower levels of daily self-esteem.

Also, assessing the terminology used throughout the curriculum, "protection" was often used instead of more specific language.

These findings highlight important considerations for how best to advance education curricula for the future.

There are gaps in Ontario's 2019 Health and Physical Education curriculum. The risk-centered framework used leave teachers responsible for facilitating youth's access to contraception. Some teachers reinforced the curriculum's risk-centered framework in their school, which may perpetuate stigma.

4) Holly MacDonald is up next, sharing her research that analyzed Ontario’s 2019 Health and Physical Education curriculum to understand how it might facilitate access to contraception for youth in grades seven and eight.

It is pertinent to note that contraception use patterns may reflect changes in media coverage in addition to introduction of new methods and policies.

It will be important for future research to continue to monitor these trends and investigate influences of contraceptives on other health outcomes!

3) Alice Mei presents a research project looking at the incidence and prevalence of LNG-IUD (intrauterine device) use in Canada.

After its introduction in 2001, the use of the LNG-IUD increased and oral contraceptive use decreased. Irreversible contraceptive use have also been gradually declining.

It is possible that the androgenic actions of LNG may be preventing some effects of gonadal hormones, leading to diminishing of the sex differences originally observed.

LNG increased anxiety-like behaviour in female rats, eliminating the #sexdifference observed without LNG treatment in these tests.

However, in a social interaction test, female rats showed greater anxiety-like behaviour - LNG again eliminated the sex difference.

2) Next, Alison Randell discusses how use of #Levonorgestrel (LNG; commonly used as the morning-after pill and other long-term contraception methods) during #adolescence affect #anxiety -like behaviour in a rat model.

Females generally showed less anxiety-like behaviour than males (across 2 tests).