Space-like 56 Fe irradiation manifests mild, early sex-specific behavioral and neuropathological changes in wildtype and Alzheimer’s-like transgenic mice

Despite knowledge that spaceflight causes significant sex-dependent physiological changes in astronauts, the sex-dependent differences in neurobehavioural responses to HZE radiation are still relatively unexplored. This issue is not unique to the field of radiation biology. Including sex as a variable adds nontrivial work and complexity to study design, but its importance and benefits to biology at large are clear⁴⁵. Additionally, data are limited regarding the interactions between radiation and genetic predispositions to disease. Most of the previous studies of ⁵⁶Fe irradiation have used the same sex or same genotype of rodents (normally male WT) with high doses, conditions which are not representative of astronauts undergoing long-term space travel. Furthermore, recognizing generalized effects of low dose, heavy ion irradiation on behavior has been difficult, in part, due to…