The notion of notable anatomical, biochemical, and behavioral distinctions within male and female brains has been a contentious topic of interest within the scientific community over several decades. Advancements in neuroimaging and molecular biological techniques have increasingly elucidated common mechanisms characterizing brain aging while also revealing disparities between sexes in these processes. Variations in cognitive functions; susceptibility to and progression of neurodegenerative conditions, notably Alzheimer\'s and Parkinson\'s diseases; and notable disparities in life expectancy between sexes, underscore the significance of evaluating aging within the framework of gender differences. This comprehensive review surveys contemporary literature on the restructuring of brain structures and fundamental processes unfolding in the aging brain at cellular and molecular levels, with a focus on gender distinctions. Additionally, the review delves into age-related cognitive alterations, exploring factors influencing the acceleration or deceleration of aging, with particular attention to estrogen\'s hormonal support of the central nervous system.

BACKGROUND: Despite the challenging curriculum, medicine is a popular study program. We propose McClelland\'s Motive Disposition Theory (MDT) as a possible theory for explaining medical students motivation. The theory describes how individuals differ in their behaviour due to their varying manifestations of certain motives. The three motives can thus influence the students behaviour and academic success. Using these motives, complimented with an altruism- and a freedom motive, this study was aimed at investigating young adults\' explicit motives to study medicine. In addition, we also wanted to find out whether there are gender differences in motives and other variables such as empathy, emotional intelligence and academic self-concept.
METHODS: Over 20 universities across Germany were contacted and asked to share the online study with their first semester medical students in the winter term 2022/23, which resulted in a final N = 535. We used validated and reliable measurements, including a self-created and piloted questionnaire covering medicine-specific explicit motives.
RESULTS: Comparing the mean scores between motives, we found that the altruism motive was the strongest motive (M = 5.19), followed by freedom (M = 4.88), affiliation (M = 4.72) and achievement (M = 4.59). The power motive achieved the lowest score (M = 3.92). Male students scored significantly higher for power (M = 4.24) than females did (M = 3.80, p < .001), while female students found affiliation more important (M = 4.81) than male students did (M = 4.59, p = .016). Female participants scored significantly higher for emotional intelligence (p = .010) and several personality aspects, including empathy (p < .001), but showed a significantly lower academic self-concept (p = .033), compared to their male colleagues. Nonetheless, the effect sizes were mostly small to medium.
CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that first-year medical students are primarily motivated by humanitarian factors to study medicine, compared to motives related to money or power. This is mostly in line with earlier studies using qualitative approaches, showing that MDT can be applied to explain explicit motives in medical students.
BACKGROUND: The longitudinal project, which this study was part of, was registered via OSF ( https://archive.org/details/osf-registrations-mfhek-v1 ) on the 28th of September 2022 under the title \"Transformation of emotion and motivation factors in medical students during the study progress: A multicenter longitudinal study\".

UNASSIGNED: This time-lagged study delves into the impact of digitalization on job stress. Digitalization is defined as the incorporation of digital technologies into various aspects of work life, fundamentally transforming processes, interactions, and decision-making.
UNASSIGNED: The present research focuses on the mediating roles of job-related risk and personal risk, and the moderating effect of gender. We hypothesized that employees’ aversion to risks, both in their professional and personal facets, mediates the relationship between the rapid digitalization of their work environment and the resultant job stress. Regarding gender as a moderator, recent research suggests that gender can influence the experience of workplace stress, with women often experiencing higher levels of stress than men in certain situations. This indicates that gender might also moderate the relationship between digital living, risk perception, and job-related stress. This approach allows for an examination of the ways in which digital technology adoption influences workplace stress, considering the temporally spaced data.
UNASSIGNED: Conducted over three waves of data collection among 795 Chinese employees, the research utilizes Hayes’s Model 8, adept at revealing the dynamics of digitalization’s influence in the workplace and its effects on individual well-being.
UNASSIGNED: The study corroborates Hypothesis 1 by establishing a significant, albeit less pronounced, relationship between digital living and job stress. The findings also support Hypothesis 2 by demonstrating that both job risk and personal risk mediate this relationship. The study’s results also validate Hypothesis 3, indicating that gender moderates the relationship between digital living, job risk, personal risk, and job stress. Finally, the significant interaction effects found in the study, particularly the stronger conditional negative effect of digital living on perceptions of job and personal risks for males, despite the absence of statistical significance failed to support Hypothesis 4.
UNASSIGNED: This study sheds light on the dynamics of job stress in the context of a digitalizing work environment. The results have important implications for designing workplace strategies and interventions that are sensitive to risk perceptions and gender differences in the digital era.

BACKGROUND: Skin hydration (SKH) measurements are used for multiple purposes: to study skin physiology, to clinically investigate dermatological issues, and to assess localized skin water in pathologies like diabetes and lymphedema. Often the volar forearm is measured at various times of day (TOD). This report aims to characterize intra-day variations in volar forearm SKH to provide guidance on expected TOD dependence.
METHODS: Forty medical students (20 male) self-measured tissue dielectric constant (TDC) on their non-dominant forearm in triplicate as an index of local skin tissue water every 2 h starting at 0800 and ending at 2400 h. All were trained and pre-certified in the procedure and had whole-body fat (FAT%) and water (H2O%) measured. Day average TDC (TDCAVG) was determined as the average of all time points expressed as mean ± SD.
RESULTS: Males versus females had similar ages (25.1 ± 2.2 years vs. 25.1 ± 1.5 years), higher H2O% (56.6 ± 5.0 vs. 51.8 ± 5.7, p = 0.002), and higher TDCAVG (32.7 ± 4.1 vs. 28.5 ± 5.1, p = 0.008). TDC values were not significantly impacted by H2O% or FAT%. Female TDC exhibited a significant decreasing trend from morning to night (p = 0.004); male TDC showed no trend.
CONCLUSIONS: Skin water assessed by TDC shows some intra-day variations for females and males but with quite different temporal patterns. Clinical relevance relates to the confidence level associated with skin hydration estimates when measured at different times of day during normal clinic hours which, based on the present data, is expected to be around 5% for both males and females.

BACKGROUND: In today\'s world, which is progressively oriented towards science and technology and facing a growing demand for skilled professionals, it becomes essential to identify the factors that encourage individuals to pursue careers in STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). Previous research has shown that affective-motivational factors, math performance and gender influence STEM occupational and academic choices in adulthood. However, few studies examined how these factors may influence STEM choices as early as middle school. This study aims to assess how math anxiety, math self-efficacy, math performance and gender influence STEM school choices during middle school.
METHODS: We longitudinally assessed a group of 109 students (Year 6) over three school years, with measurements taken on three different occasions.
RESULTS: Findings indicated that individuals who made an STEM school choice experienced lower math anxiety, higher self-efficacy and math performance and were predominantly male. Furthermore, the results indicated that both math anxiety in Year 7 and self-efficacy in Year 6 made the most substantial unique contributions to the STEM school choice.
CONCLUSIONS: Math anxiety and math self-efficacy seem to be both crucial in influencing middle school students\' STEM choices, offering new perspectives for early interventions aimed at promoting more informed school choices.

UNASSIGNED: An increasing number of Canadians are registering as authorized users of medical cannabis. Older patients comprise a growing subset of this population; however, relatively little information exists around age-related patterns of medical cannabis use.
UNASSIGNED: The Canadian Cannabis Patient Survey (CCPS) is a large cross-sectional survey of authorized medical cannabis patients in Canada. This publication summarizes the results of the CCPS 2021, with a focus on age-related outcomes and the elderly sub-population.
UNASSIGNED: The survey was completed by 2,697 patients. The mean age of participants was 54.3 years of age and the proportion of female respondents was 49.1%. Among older patients, pain was the most common symptom, while anxiety was the most common symptom reported by younger patients. Older patients exhibited a significant preference for oral administration over inhalation of medical cannabis when compared to younger patients, respectively (p>0.05). Among patients taking prescription opioids, most of whom were older patients, 54% reported a decrease in use concurrent with medical cannabis.
UNASSIGNED: Older patients comprise a growing subset of medical cannabis patients, which is also reflected in CCPS participants over time. This patient population exhibits different patterns of use compared to their younger counterparts, preferring high CBD orally ingested formulations, which they use primarily to treat pain-related illnesses/symptoms. Overall, study participants reported that cannabis had a high degree of efficacy in alleviating their illness/symptoms, and many reported a reduction in their use of prescription opioids, alcohol, tobacco, and other substances.

Dishonesty, including lying, cheating, deception, and deviating from societal norms, has far-reaching implications across various aspects of modern society. From minor consequences like social discontent to severe outcomes such as economic damage through tax evasion, dishonest behavior affects us in multiple ways. This study investigates whether gender and psychological traits contribute to dishonest behavior, and whether unethical conduct is stable across diverse tasks. We examined 63 participants using a \"Difference Spotting Task\" (DST) and two motor tasks (1. coordinative throwing; 2. isometric strength). Dishonesty was measured by comparing self-reported performance with actual performance, allowing for a comprehensive analysis of both occurrence and extent of dishonesty. Our findings indicate that gender does not significantly influence the occurrence or extent of dishonest behavior. Moreover, we discovered that \"Social Desirability\" positively influences the extent of dishonesty, while \"Task Orientation\" increases the likelihood of engaging in dishonest acts. The study also reveals that the level of dishonesty remains relatively stable across all three tasks at an intrapersonal level.

BACKGROUND: We aimed to explore gender-related differences in the associations of insight impairment with clinical symptoms, metacognition, and social cognition in psychosis.
METHODS: Regression analysis of several clinical insight dimensions was conducted on the data from 116 men and 56 women with first-episode psychosis. Various clinical symptoms and measures of metacognition and social cognition were entered as predictors.
RESULTS: In both men and women, delusions emerged as a strong predictor of all insight dimensions, and verbal hallucinations as a strong predictor of symptom relabelling. In men, certain negative symptoms as well as self-certainty, lack of self-reflectiveness, impaired theory of mind, attributional biases, and a jumping-to-conclusions bias were additional predictors of poor insight, while good insight was associated with depression, anxiety, avolition, blunted affect, and impaired emotional recognition. In women, poor insight was associated with a self-serving/externalising bias, impaired emotional recognition, and attention disorders.
CONCLUSIONS: Poor insight in first-episode psychosis is strongly linked to deficits in metacognition and social cognition, with marked differences between men and women with respect to the specific skills involved in the impairment. Meanwhile, good insight is linked to a variety of affective manifestations in men. These findings suggest new avenues for more targeted cognitive interventions to improve clinical insight in psychosis.

BACKGROUND: We evaluated the impact of gender on disease severity, health-related quality of life (HRQoL), treatment management, and patient-healthcare professional (HCP) interactions from the perspectives of patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA).
METHODS: Data were collected from a global online patient survey conducted by The Harris Poll (November 2, 2017 to March 12, 2018). Eligible patients were aged ≥ 18 years, with a self-reported diagnosis of PsA for > 1 year, had visited a rheumatologist/dermatologist in the past 12 months, and had reported previously using ≥ 1 conventional synthetic or biologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drug. Data were stratified by gender and analyzed descriptively, inferentially by binomial (chi-square) tests, and by multivariate logistic regression models.
RESULTS: Data from 1286 patients who participated were included: 52% were female, 48% were male. Varying perceptions of disease severity between males and females were indicated by differences in symptoms leading to a diagnosis of PsA, and in symptoms reported despite treatment; more females than males reported joint tenderness, skin patches/plaques, and enthesitis. More females than males reported a major/moderate impact of PsA on their physical activity and emotional/mental well-being. Reasons for switching medication differed between genders, with more females switching because they perceived their medication to not be effective enough related to their joint symptoms. More females than males were very satisfied with their communication with their rheumatologist and were more likely to discuss the impact of PsA on their daily lives, their treatment satisfaction, and treatment goals with their rheumatologist.
CONCLUSIONS: Patients\' perceptions of the impact of PsA on HRQoL, treatment management, and interactions with HCPs varied between males and females. More females than males reported major/moderate physical and emotional impacts of PsA. When treating patients, it is important for HCPs to consider the potential impact of gender on patients\' experience of PsA and its symptoms. Graphical plain language summary available for this article.

UNASSIGNED: Research demonstrates significant gender- and sexual orientation-based differences in orgasm rates from sexual intercourse; however, this \"orgasm gap\" has not been studied with respect to age.
UNASSIGNED: The study sought to examine age-related disparities in orgasm rates from sexual intercourse by gender and sexual orientation.
UNASSIGNED: A survey sample of 24 752 adults from the United States, ranging in age from 18 to 100 years. Data were collected across 8 cross-sectional surveys between 2015 and 2023.
UNASSIGNED: Participants reported their average rate of orgasm during sexual intercourse, from 0% to 100%.
UNASSIGNED: Orgasm rate was associated with age but with minimal effect size. In all age groups, men reported higher rates of orgasm than did women. Men\'s orgasm rates ranged from 70% to 85%, while women\'s ranged from 46% to 58%. Men reported orgasm rates between 22% and 30% higher than women\'s rates. Sexual orientation impacted orgasm rates by gender but not uniformly across age groups.
UNASSIGNED: The persistence of the orgasm gap across ages necessitates a tailored approach in clinical practice and education, focusing on inclusive sexual health discussions, addressing the unique challenges of sexual minorities and aging, and emphasizing mutual satisfaction to promote sexual well-being for all.
UNASSIGNED: This study is the first to examine the orgasm gap with respect to age, and does so in a large, diverse sample. Findings are limited by methodology, including single-item assessments of orgasm and a sample of single adults.
UNASSIGNED: This study revealed enduring disparities in orgasm rates from sexual intercourse, likely resulting from many factors, including sociocultural norms and inadequate sex education.