ABSTRACT
Women’s health issues have received attention as gender differences in disease expression and drug action are discovered. A gender-based approach recognizes the fundamental physiologic differences between men and women. The areas of difference between men and women in the nervous system are extensive including anatomy, cell numbers, neurotransmitter systems, response to hormones, sensation threshold and disease frequencies. Gender and multiple sclerosis (MS) has been the subject of several excellent reviews (Olek and Khoury 2000; Coyle 2000). Specific disorders such as migraine headache, depression and motor neuron disease also show clear gender preferences.
