The role of gender in parkinson’s disease

Since the official inclusion of sex and gender in biomedical research, gender differences are recognized as important determinants of the risk of developing neurode-generative diseases in the healthy population. In this review, we collected the available evidence on gender differences in Parkinson’s disease regarding motor and non-motor symp-toms, with a focus on neuropsychiatric symptoms. Finally, we will briefly discuss the issue of pregnancy for parkinso-nian women. Though starting with a more benign pheno-type, as the disease progresses, women are at higher risk of developing disabling treatment-related complications, such as motor and non-motor fluctuations as well as dyskinesia, compared with men. Taken together, these findings chal-lenge the definition of a more benign phenotype in women. Improving our understanding in gender differences in Par-kinson’s disease may result in improving our ability to tailor disease treatment and management.