Science Forum: Sex differences and sex bias in human circadian and sleep physiology research
- University of Oxford, United Kingdom
- Northumbria University, United Kingdom
- Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdom
- German Aerospace Center, Germany
- Wellcome Trust, United Kingdom
- AstraZeneca, United Kingdom
- University of Warwick, United Kingdom
- University College London, United Kingdom
- University of Michigan, United States
Abstract
Growing evidence shows that sex differences impact many facets of human biology. Here we review and discuss the impact of sex on human circadian and sleep physiology, and we uncover a data gap in the field investigating the non-visual effects of light in humans. A virtual workshop on the biomedical implications of sex differences in sleep and circadian physiology then led to the following imperatives for future research: (1) design research to be inclusive and accessible, (2) implement recruitment strategies that lead to a sex-balanced sample, (3) use data visualization to grasp the effect of sex, (4) implement statistical analyses that include sex as a factor and/or perform group analyses by sex, where possible, (5) make participant-level data open and available to facilitate future meta-analytic efforts.
Data availability
All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting files. Source data and source code files have been provided for Figure 1.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Wellcome Trust (204686/Z/16/A)
- Manuel Spitschan
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (FI 2275/3-1)
- Dorothee Fischer
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2022, Spitschan et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Science Forum: Sex differences and sex bias in human circadian and sleep physiology research
eLife 11:e65419.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.65419
