The study revealed the gender differences in the correlation between schizophrenia symptoms and superoxide dismplase.

Schizophrenia is a psychotic syndrome in which the main symptoms include positive symptoms (e.g. hallucinations, delusions, and speech confusion), negative symptoms (e.g., reduced motivation, reduced expression) and cognitive impairments (e.g., impaired executive function, memory and mental processing speed).
oxidative stress and antioxidant defense system disorders are considered important risk factors for schizophrenia.
superoxide dismification enzyme (SOD) as an antioxidant enzyme, including three isomers: CuZnSOD (SOD1), located in the cytoste, CuZnSOD (SOD3), which is present in mitochondrial mitochondrials.
studies have shown that soD activity in patients with schizophrenia is abnormal, and SOD activity is positively related to positive symptoms, negative symptoms and general psychiatric indicators.
studies have found that there are gender differences in risk of schizophrenia, course of illness and so on, while gender differences in clinical symptoms and cognitive function are undesolt.
mechanism for gender differences in schizophrenia is not clear.
the gender differences in the correlation between SOD activity and clinical symptoms in patients with schizophrenia, there is currently no discussion.
The Zhang Xiangyang Research Group, a key mental health laboratory of the Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, conducted research to explore the clinical characteristics and gender differences and relationships of the activity of superoxide dismplase (SOD) in patients with untreated first-time schizophrenia in the Han Chinese population.
The study recruited 165 patients with untreated first-time schizophrenia (male/female : 98/67), 133 cases in a healthy control group (male/female - 70/63), tested the total SOD and MnSOD activity of the above subjects, and assessed the psychotic symptoms of the subjects using a five-factor model of positive and negative symptom scale (PANSS).
found that the total SOD activity of plasma in patients with schizophrenia was significantly higher than in the healthy control group (P.lt;0.01).
in the health control group, total SOD activity was significantly higher in men than in women (P.lt;0.001), while there was no significant difference in the patient group (P.gt;0.05).
multi-regression analysis showed that the PANSS depressive factor score in male patients was positively related to MnSOD and total SOD activity, respectively, while the PANSS positive symptom score in female patients was positively related to MnSOD activity (P.lt;05).
above results showed that there was a gender difference in the correlation between SOD activity and early psychiatric symptoms of schizophrenia in untreated patients with first-time schizophrenia.
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