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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Diabetes. Feb 15, 2017; 8(2): 45-55
Published online Feb 15, 2017. doi: 10.4239/wjd.v8.i2.45
Integrating insulin-like growth factor 1 and sex hormones into neuroprotection: Implications for diabetes
Jacob Huffman, Christina Hoffmann, George T Taylor
Jacob Huffman, Christina Hoffmann, George T Taylor, Behavioral Neuroscience Program, Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri, St. Louis, MO 63121, United States
George T Taylor, Interfakultäre Biomedizinische Forschungseinrichtung der Universität Heidelberg, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
Author contributions: Huffman J designed the figure and contributed to writing the manuscript; Hoffmann C and Taylor GT contributed to writing the manuscript and editing process.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflict of interests for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: George T Taylor, PhD, Professor, Behavioral Neuroscience Program, Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri, 1 University Blvd, St. Louis, MO 63121, United States. geot@umsl.edu
Telephone: +1-314-5761709
Received: July 6, 2016
Peer-review started: July 12, 2016
First decision: September 12, 2016
Revised: September 24, 2016
Accepted: November 21, 2016
Article in press: November 22, 2016
Published online: February 15, 2017
Processing time: 224 Days and 8.9 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1), estrogen, and androgens are known to have neuroprotective properties. Fluctuations in these hormones is observed in patients with diabetes, varies with sex, and may contribute to abnormalities in brain integrity and cognitive impairment typical of the disease. While the neuroprotective coupling of estrogen and IGF1 has been studied extensively, little research has focused similarly on androgens. Furthermore, research investigating the IGF1-sex hormones relation to diabetes and brain-health outcomes is minimal. One avenue of approach to extend this literature may be to examine sex differences by comparison of these hormone levels, brain integrity, and cognitive aptitude.