Animal studies indicate that females are more susceptible to the neurotoxic effects of alcohol withdrawal than men, thus raising their risk of brain damage caused by excessive drinking, Science Daily reported July 24.

Researcher Kristine Wiren, Ph.D., and colleagues at Oregon Health & Science University said that females appear to have more brain cells die during severe withdrawal. The researchers said that gender played a role in alcohol-related brain damage whether or not the mice were genetically predisposed to having severe withdrawal symptoms.

"We designed the experiment to be able to identify gene expression differences between lines of mice that are genetically selected for severe alcohol withdrawal compared with mice that are resistant to alcohol withdrawal," Wiren said. "I thought there would be a difference between the genders, but I didn't think it would be the most important thing."

Tracking cell death 10 days after alcohol withdrawal, "we clearly see females are showing enhanced brain damage compared to the males," said Wiren. "So, if you're female, the cells are dying; if you're a male, the cells are not. We don't know the behavioral consequences of that, though."

The authors held out the possibility that male mice might lose brain cells at a different point in time, or that cells in males may have died earlier and been repaired.

The study appears in the online edition of the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.