Sleep, rhythms, and the endocrine brain: influence of sex and gonadal hormones
Open accessAbstract
While much is known about the mechanisms that underlie sleep and circadian rhythms, the investigation into sex differences and gonadal steroid modulation of sleep and biological rhythms is in its infancy. There is a growing recognition of sex disparities in sleep and rhythm disorders. Understanding how neuroendocrine mediators and sex differences influence sleep and biological rhythms is central to advancing our understanding of sleep-related disorders. While it is known that ovarian steroids affect circadian rhythms in rodents, the role of androgen is less understood. Surprising findings that androgens, acting via androgen receptors in the master "circadian clock" within the suprachiasmatic nucleus, modulate photic effects on activity in males point to novel mechanisms of circadian control. Work in aromatase-deficient mice suggests that some sex differences in photic responsiveness are independent of gonadal hormone effects during development. In parallel, aspects of sex differences in sleep are also reported to be independent of gonadal steroids and may involve sex chromosome complement. This a summary of recent work illustrating how sex differences and gonadal hormones influence sleep and circadian rhythms that was presented at a Mini-Symposium at the 2011 annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Women accumulate sleep debt more rapidly than men do and might need more sleep to be functional.
“It has been observed that women accumulate sleep debt more rapidly than men do and might need more sleep to be functional.96–98”
From Effects of Traumatic Brain Injury on the Orexin/Hypocretin System (2025) · cites this paper as [97]
The section “Sex differences in homeostatic response to sleep loss” says emerging evidence suggests sleep debt accumulates more quickly in women and may be more debilitating. But “Future Directions” asks whether women’s sleep needs differ from men’s; it does not establish that women need more sleep to function. (LLM, conf=0.88)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredBoth internal components (circadian and homeostatic) are sensitive to sex (gonadal) hormones, such as estrogen and testosterone.
“Both internal components are known to be sensitive to sex (gonadal) hormones, such as estrogen and testosterone [123], and thus could be affected by puberty.”
From The neuroendocrine control of the circadian system: Adolescent chronotype (2012) · cites this paper as [123]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 135 · Cited by 295
- Authors
- Mong, J. A., Baker, F. C., Mahoney, M. M., Paul, K. N., Schwartz, M. D., Semba, K., & Silver, R.
- Affiliations
- University of Maryland, Baltimore (US)
- SRI International (US)
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (US)
- Morehouse School of Medicine (US)
- Dalhousie University (CA)
- Columbia University Irving Medical Center (US)
- ORCID
- Venue
- The Journal of Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Society for Neuroscience
- Published
- 2011-11-09
- Volume
- 31
- Issue
- 45
- Pages
- 16107-16116
- ISSN
- 0270-6474 (ISSN-L)
- 1529-2401
- PMC
- PMC3249406
- OpenAlex
- W1971007229
- Cited by
- 295
- References
- 135
- Citations by year
- 2026: 15 · 2025: 23 · 2024: 23 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 18 · 2021: 22 · 2020: 19 · 2019: 28 · 2018: 34 · 2017: 11 · 2016: 20 · 2015: 20 · 2014: 19 · 2013: 16 · 2012: 9
- FWCI
- 1.50
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (9876754)
- Canadian Institutes of Health Research (67085_1)
- National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (HL 103688, HL088088, HL085037, R01HL103688, R01HL085037, R21HL088088)
- National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH075045, MH 075045)
- National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NS-37919, U54NS060659, NS-34194, NS060659, R01NS037919, U54NS034194, R01NS078410)
- National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (L60 MD003227)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Endocrine and Autonomic Systems › Circadian rhythm and melatonin
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Sleep and Wakefulness Research
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Reproductive Medicine › Hypothalamic control of reproductive hormones
- Keywords
- sleep, circadian rhythm, sex differences, gonadal hormones, androgens, androgen receptor, suprachiasmatic nucleus, light entrainment, aromatase, sex chromosome complement, neuroendocrine regulation, sleep disorders
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Brain, Circadian Rhythm, Endocrine System, Female, Gender Identity, Humans, Male, Sex Characteristics, Sleep, Gonadal Hormones, Mice
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
