Canada’s minister of health Jane Philpott has announced the launch of a new research initiative focusing on women’s brain health, providing financial support over the next ten years. The initiative is created through a partnership between the Posluns Family Foundation, the Alzheimer’s Society of Canada, the Ontario Brain Institute (OBI) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).
“This type of research points us in the right direction as we try to improve the lives of people whose lives are affected by dementia and Alzheimer’s, and could provide clues about the best ways to prevent these diseases entirely,” says Philpott. “I am proud to see federal, provincial, non-profit and private partners come together to support the creation of a Chair for such exceptional and important research.”
The chair, recruited across Canada or abroad through a competitive, peer-reviewed process, will conduct research that accounts for ways in which gender and sex—that is, social and biological influences—can affect women’s brain health and aging.
Based on the fact that women suffer from neurological conditions twice as much as men, this program will find differences between the sexes, which could help practitioners find better treatment options for Alzheimer’s and related dementias for their female patients.
