Epidemiological studies report higher prevalence rates of stress-related disorders such as acute stress disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in women than in men following exposure to trauma. It is still not clear whether this greater prevalence in woman reflects a greater vulnerability to stress-related psychopathology. A number of individual and trauma-related characteristics have been hypothesized to contribute to these gender differences in physiological and psychological responses to trauma, differences in appraisal, interpretation or experience of threat, coping style or social support. In this context, the use of an animal model for PTSD to analyze some of these gender-related differences may be of particular utility. Animal models of PTSD offer the opportunity to distinguish between biological and socio-cultural factors, which so often enter the discussion about gender differences in PTSD prevalence.In this review, we present and discuss sex-differences in behavioral, neurochemical, neurobiological and pharmacological findings that we have collected from several different animal studies related to both basal conditions and stress responses. These models have used different paradigms and have elicited a range of behavioral and physiological manifestations associated with gender. The overall data presented demonstrate that male animals are significantly more vulnerable to acute and chronic stress, whereas females are far more resilient. The stark contradiction between these findings and contemporary epidemiological data regarding human subjects is worthy of further study. The examination of these gender-related differences can deepen our understanding of the risk or the pathophysiology of stress-related disorders.

中文翻译：

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创伤后应激障碍动物模型的性别差异。

流行病学研究报告称，女性在遭受创伤后，与压力相关的疾病（例如急性应激障碍和创伤后应激障碍 (PTSD)）的患病率高于男性。目前尚不清楚女性中这种更普遍的现象是否反映了更容易受到与压力相关的精神病理学的影响。许多个体和与创伤相关的特征被假设为导致这些性别差异在对创伤的生理和心理反应、评估、解释或威胁经历、应对方式或社会支持方面的差异。在这种情况下，使用 PTSD 动物模型来分析其中一些与性别相关的差异可能特别有用。PTSD 的动物模型提供了区分生物和社会文化因素的机会，经常进入关于 PTSD 患病率的性别差异的讨论中。在这篇评论中，我们展示并讨论了我们从与基础条件和压力反应相关的几项不同动物研究中收集的行为、神经化学、神经生物学和药理学发现的性别差异. 这些模型使用了不同的范式，并引发了一系列与性别相关的行为和生理表现。所提供的总体数据表明，雄性动物明显更容易受到急性和慢性压力的影响，而雌性动物的适应力要强得多。这些发现与当代关于人类受试者的流行病学数据之间的明显矛盾值得进一步研究。