Oxidative stress may be caused by an increased rate of ATP resynthesis during physical exercise. The aim of this study was to compare changes in the prooxidant-antioxidant state of blood plasma between men and women after maximal-intensity exercise, and to assess the relationship between these changes and the value of the maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max) as well as between these changes and the value of post-exercise disruptions in acid-base balance. Study participants comprised 10 women (20.7±0.5 years) and 10 men (22.3±0.5 years) who were physically active but did no t engage in competitive sports training. VO2max was determined via treadmill incremental test (VO2max relative to body mass: 44.48±1.21 ml/kg/min and 59.16±1.55 ml/kg/min for women and men, respectively). The level of acid-base balance indicators (ABB), lactate concentration (La-), the level of total oxidative status (TOS), the level of total antioxidative capacity (TAC), an d uric acid (UA) concentration were measured before and after the test. An oxidative stress indicator (OSI) was also calculated. Men showed a significant post-exercise increase in the level of TOS and OSI, while women showed a significant post-exercise increase in the level of TAC. Post-exercise changes in UA concentration were insignificant. Post-exercise changes in TOC in men depended on the absolute values of VO2max , on VO2max/LBM, and on post-exercise changes in La- concentration., M. Wiecek, M. Maciejczyk, J. Szymura, Z. Szygula., and Obsahuje bibliografii
Although male rats generally outperform females in many spatial tasks, sometimes gender differences are not present. This preliminary study examined gender effects in the Enemy avoidance task, in which a rat on a stable circular arena avoids approaching a small mobile robot while collecting randomly dispersed small pellets. Whenever distance between robot and the rat dropped below 25 cm, animal was punished by a mild footshock. Female rats showed thigmotaxis, hypolocomotion and avoidance of robot in the habituation phase, when approaches were not punished. No statistically significant differences in avoidance learning under reinforcement training sessions were observed; but females still spent significantly more time at periphery of the arena and foraged less than males. We conclude that females were able to perform at the same level as males under reinforcement despite different behavioral strategy. The thigmotaxic behavior appears to function as innate escape strategy in female rats triggered by the stressing effect of the moving robot rather then the presence of shocks., J. Svoboda, ... [et al.]., and Obsahuje seznam literatury
Neuroimaging methods have been used to study differences of brain function between males and females. Differences in working memory have been also investigated, but results of such studies are mixed with respect to behavioral data, reaction times and activated brain areas. We tried to analyze functional MRI data acquired during the working memory task and search for differences of brain activation between genders. 20 healthy righthanded volunteers (10 males and 10 females) participated in the study. All of them were university students or fresh graduates. Subjects underwent block designed verbal working memory task (Item Recognition Task) inside the MRI scanner. Standard singlesubject pre-processing and group fMRI analyses were performed using the FEAT software from FSL library. In the behavioral data, there was no statistically significant difference in the number of correct responses during the task. The task activated similar bilateral regions of frontal, parietal, temporal and occipital lobes, basal ganglia, the brainstem and in the cerebellum, which corresponds to the previous verbal working memory neuroimaging research. In direct comparison, there was no statistically significant difference in brain activation between small samples of male and female young healthy volunteers., Z. Tüdös, P. Hok, P. Hluštík, A. Grambal., and Obsahuje bibliografii
Mitochondria are considered central regulator of the aging process; however, majority of studies dealing with the impact of age on mitochondrial oxygen consumption focused on skeletal muscle concluding (although not uniformly) a general declining trend with advancing age. In addition, gender related differences in mitochondrial respiration have not been satisfactorily described yet. The aim of the present study was to evaluate mitochondrial oxygen consumption in various organs of aging male and female Fischer 344 rats at the ages of 6, 12 and 24 months. Mitochondrial respiration of homogenized (skeletal muscle, left and right heart ventricle, hippocampus, cerebellum, kidney cortex), gently mechanically permeabilized (liver) tissue or intact cells (platelets) was determined using high-resolution respirometry (oxygraphs O2k, Oroboros, Austria). The pattern of age-related changes differed in each tissue: in the skeletal muscle and kidney cortex of both sexes and in female heart, parameters of mitochondrial respiration significantly declined with age. Resting respiration of intact platelets displayed an increasing trend and it did not correlate with skeletal muscle respiratory states. In the heart of male rats and brain tissues of both sexes, respiratory states remained relatively stable over analyzed age categories with few exceptions of lower mitochondrial oxygen consumption at the age of 24 months. In the liver, OXPHOS capacity was higher in females than in males with either no difference between the ages of 6 and 24 months or even significant increase at the age of 24 months in the male rats. In conclusion, the results of our study indicate that the concept of general pattern of age-dependent decline in mitochondrial oxygen consumption across different organs and tissues could be misleading. Also, the statement of higher mitochondrial respiration in females seems to be conflicting, since the genderrelated differences may vary with the tissue studied, combination of substrates used and might be better detectable at younger ages than in old animals.
While fertility rates in Western countries are low and the number of people who will remain voluntarily childless is increasing, more and more couples are seeking medical treatment for infertility. Fertility problems transcend the boundaries of medicine and challenge the traditional positivistic understanding of health and illness and the authority of scientific and objective medicine. The circumstances for coping with infertility are not universal and depend instead on the given society and on cultural values. Studying infertility means studying every important institution of our society: the institutions of marriage and the family, the institution of parenthood, medicine, and so on. While American and other Western social scientists have studied social aspects of infertility for many years, in the Czech Republic the topic remains the domain of medicine. This article focuses on basic concepts employed in the study of infertility and involuntary childlessness in sociology. It presents and summarises relevant concepts such as stigmatisation, social exclusion, identity problems, and gender differences in the response to infertility. It presents the debate over explaining the terms of infertility and (involuntary and voluntary) childlessness. It shows how the position of involuntary childlessness has been changing as the problem has increasingly come to be dealt with in medical terms and as high-tech medical treatments for infertility have been developed. Finally, the article opens up the topic for debate and raises the question of potential methods of research.
Studie se zabývá vztahem osobnostních charakteristik pětifaktorového modelu osobnosti (neuroticismus, extraverze, otevřenost vůči zkušenosti, přívětivost, svědomitost) a osobní pohody. Výzkumu se účastnily dvě skupiny respondentů: vysokoškoláci (N = 2317) a dospělí ve věku 40 – 83 let (N = 196). Na základě krokové regresní analýzy bylo zjištěno, že se na predikci osobní pohody u vysokoškoláků podílejí čtyři osobnostní vlastnosti (v pořadí neuroticismus, svědomitost, extraverze, přívětivost), kdežto u dospělých pouze dvě (v pořadí neuroticismus, extraverze). Kroková regresní analýza byla provedena také odděleně pro muže a ženy. Byl zaznamenán odlišný počet prediktorů osobní pohody u žen a mužů v obou sledovaných skupinách. U vysokoškolaček se na predikci osobní pohody podílejí ve stejném pořadí výše uvedené čtyři osobnostní vlastnosti, kdežto u vysokoškoláků chybí jako prediktor přívětivost. Ve skupině dospělých mužů je neuroticismus jediným prediktorem osobní pohody. U dospělých žen se však na predikci osobní pohody neuroticismus nepodílí vůbec. V této skupině je nejsilnějším prediktorem osobní pohody extraverze, následuje svědomitost a přívětivost.
Cílem výzkumu bylo zjistit, které osobnostní dimenze jsou spojeny s životní spokojeností a sebehodnocením u adolescentů na základě Cloningerova psychobiologického modelu temperamentu a charakteru. Výsledky jsou intepretovány v kontextu rodových rozdílů a ve vztahu k pětifaktorovému modelu osobnosti. Životní spokojenost i sebehodnocení jsou u celého souboru záporně spojeny s temperamentovou dimenzí vyhýbání se poškození (HA) a kladně asociovány s charakterovou dimenzí sebeřízení (SD). Diskriminační hodnotu má charakterová dimenze spolupráce (CO), jež kladně koreluje se životní spokojeností, ale ne se sebehodnocením. Sebehodnocení je průkazně vyšší u chlapců, u životní spokojenosti nebyly nalezeny mezi chlapci a dívkami průkazné rozdíly. Vztahy životní spokojenosti k osobnostním dimenzím dle Cloningera jsou odlišné. Životní spokojenost je u chlapců spojena pouze s charakterovou dimenzí spolupráce (CO), kdežto u dívek s touto dimenzí nekoreluje. U dívek je životní spokojenost negativně asociována s temperamentovou dimenzí vyhýbání se poškození (HA) a kladně spojena s charakterovou dimenzí sebeřízení (SD). Vztahy sebehodnocení a osobnostních dimenzí TCI jsou pro obě skupiny stejné. Sebehodnocení je u chlapců i u dívek negativně asociováno s tendencí vyhýbat se poškození (HA) a v kladném vztahu k dimenzi sebeřízení (SD). and Adolescent personality correlates of life satisfaction and self-esteem gender differences
The goal of the study was to assess which personality dimensions are connected to life satisfaction and self-esteem in adolescents on the basis of Cloninger‘s psychobiological model of temperament and character. The results are interpreted in the context of gender differences and in the relation to the five factors personality model. Life satisfaction and self-esteem are negatively connected to the harm avoidance (HA) temperament dimension and positively to the self-directedness (SD) character dimension in the whole sample. The cooperativeness (CO) character dimension correlating positively with life satisfaction but not with the self-esteem has a discriminative value. The self-esteem is evidentially higher in boys, in life satisfaction no convincing differences between boys and girls were found. The relations of life satisfaction to personality dimensions according to Cloninger are different. Life satisfaction in boys is connected to the cooperativeness (CO) character dimension only while it is not correlated to this dimension in girls. Life satisfaction is negatively associated to the harm avoidance (HA) temperament dimension and positively connected to the self-directedness (SD) character dimension in girls. The relations of self-esteem and personality dimensions of TCI are equal in both the groups. Self-esteem is both in boys and girls negatively associated to the harm avoidance (HA) temperament dimension and positively connected to the self-directedness (SD) character dimension.
Latent toxoplasmosis has been previously found to cause behavioural and personality changes in humans, which are specific for each gender. Here we tested the stress hypothesis of these gender differences based on the assumption that latent toxoplasmosis causes long-term subliminal stress. In line with this hypothesis, the gender difference will appear specifically in situations with interpersonal context because in contrast to the typical individualistic coping style of men, women have a tendency to express elevated prosocial behaviour under stress. Altogether 295 biology students (29/191 females and 27/104 males infected by T. gondii) played a modified version of the Dictator Game and the Trust Game. As predicted, a gender difference in the effect of latent toxoplasmosis was found for the measure of reciprocal altruism in the Trust Game (p=0.016), but both genders appeared less generous when infected in the Dictator Game modified to minimize social connotation (p=0.048).
In the last ten years, the Czech Republic participated in numerous international comparative studies measuring knowledge and skills of school children in various subject areas. The studies have brought a lot of notable information on gender differences in student outcomes. Unfortunately, these findings met very limited attention of the Czech society and educational policymakers. The aim of this article is to summarize key findings about gender differences in the areas of reading, mathematics and science and to show the relationships between student results and their educational aspirations and attitudes.
For the evaluation of sexual dimorphism 739 red fox skulls (including 433 males and 306 females) from the Czech Republic were examined. The individuals younger than six months were excluded from the study of sexual dimorphism and the rest was divided into three age classes (individuals at the age of 6.5–12 months, 12.5–24 months and 24.5 months and older). Skull size differences between males and females were significant in all age classes. Males exceeded females in all dimensions with the exception of postorbital breadth, which was wider in females. Other skull shape differences between males and females were not confirmed. Age class including individuals 12.5–24 months old was the only, in which significant skull shape differences were found. We suppose that competition between males could play the major role in sexual dimorphism formation.