Join us for one of our informal Science Cafés, featuring a short talk and the opportunity to ask lots of questions of the scientists that we work with. Explore amazing research on a global scale.
Why do psychiatric medications affect women and men differently?
We know that women and men show significant differences in how they are affected by mental illness. Much of this is due to social reasons but, no less importantly, important biological factors are at play. These factors are important for the progression of the diseases and for how effective psychiatric medications are at treating them. Professor Hermona Soreq, from the Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences and the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, discusses her research in this field. What are we learning about the differences in how women and men are affected by psychiatric medications? How will it help us develop better medications in the future.
The event will take place on Wednesday, 9 December 17:00 (Israel local time)
The broadcast will be held in English and will be open to everyone
About the speaker
Hermona Soreq has initiated and led the revelation of the RNA regulators of acetylcholine (ACh) signalling in brain and body. Her work highlighted the complex control over ACh synthesis, its activation of receptors and its enzymatic degradation under small RNAs blockade. Recently, she explores the yet unclear differences between mental disease-related cholinergic mechanisms in men and women brains and in neurodegenerating brains. This work can shed new light on the yet unknown mechanisms underlying the recent clinical big data reports on the impact of anti-cholinergic medications as risk factors of dementia in the elderly. Soreq's research pioneered the application of molecular biology and genomics to the study of cholinergic signalling in health and disease. Soreq is the elected head of the International Organization of Cholinergic Mechanisms and was the elected Dean of the Faculty of Science from 2005-2008.
