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Studies about affect changes during the menstrual cycle and the role of hormones in these changes have yielded contradictory results. Often research has focused on the pre-menstrual phase, with few studies paying specific attention to the affect changes around ovulation. In this research thirty women completed a daily questionnaire measuring the po...
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... are four main hormones involved in the menstrual cycle ( Fig. 1): two of them, Progesterone and Estrogen, are released by the ovaries while the other two, Luteinizing Hormone (LH) and Follicle-Stimulating Hormone (FSH), are released by the pituitary gland. This gland is a brain structure that also plays a role in emotional processing ( Daban et al., 2005). Could the high levels of LH and FSH needed ...
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... this analysis, the data from the participant who reported the peak on the 26th day was excluded for being significantly outside of the range of days where it would have been expected. This analysis showed a statistically significant difference in both PA (F(1, 14) = 25.032, p = .000), ...
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... the LH peak, was performed without aligning the LH peaks. For this analysis, the data from the participant who reported the peak on the 26th day was excluded for being significantly outside of the range of days where it would have been expected. This analysis showed a statistically significant difference in both PA (F(1, 14) = 25.032, p = .000), Fig. 3, and NA (F(1, 14) = 10.180, p = .007), Fig. ...
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... naturally-cycling group's NA mean scores ( Fig. 9) per day showed a decrease during ovulation (days 13-15 in red) while the hormonally-contracepting group's NA mean scores (Fig. 10) showed very little variation from the ...
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... In 1983, Backstrom et al. found that cyclic changes in mood are present even when there are no changes in ovarian hormone levels. More recent studies ( Bannbers et al., 2012;Carrier, 2012;Childs et al., 2010;Schwartz et al., 2012) also measured the ovarian hormones to determine if they were responsible for mood changes and obtained mixed results. Fig. 10. Hormonally-contracepting daily NA mean scores in the 28-day cycle participants. Some inconsistencies, and possible methodological issues, were found in studies about hormones and mood which were addressed in this study to increase the reliability of the ...
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... analysis of the averages per day of the data for the days 12-19, when 92.3% of the participants reported the LH peak, was performed without aligning the LH peaks. For this analysis, the data from the participant who reported the peak on the 26th day was excluded for being significantly outside of the range of days where it would have been expected. This analysis showed a statistically significant difference in both PA (F(1, 14) = 25.032, p = .000), Fig. 3, and NA (F(1, 14) = 10.180, p = .007), Fig. ...
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... analysis of the averages per day of the data for the days 12-19, when 92.3% of the participants reported the LH peak, was performed without aligning the LH peaks. For this analysis, the data from the participant who reported the peak on the 26th day was excluded for being significantly outside of the range of days where it would have been expected. This analysis showed a statistically significant difference in both PA (F(1, 14) = 25.032, p = .000), Fig. 3, and NA (F(1, 14) = 10.180, p = .007), Fig. ...
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... NA does not seem to be caused by the menses since the PMS symptoms can happen even when the menstruation does not. A study with hysterectomized women (uterus was removed but ovaries were not) indicated that hormones are responsible for the psychological distress ( Backstrom et al., 1981). In 1983, Backstrom et al. found that cyclic changes in mood are present even when there are no changes in ovarian hormone levels. More recent studies ( Bannbers et al., 2012;Carrier, 2012;Childs et al., 2010;Schwartz et al., 2012) also measured the ovarian hormones to determine if they were responsible for mood changes and obtained mixed results. Fig. 10. Hormonally-contracepting daily NA mean scores in the 28-day cycle participants. Some inconsistencies, and possible methodological issues, were found in studies about hormones and mood which were addressed in this study to increase the reliability of the ...
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... naturally-cycling group's NA mean scores ( Fig. 9) per day showed a decrease during ovulation (days 13-15 in red) while the hormonally-contracepting group's NA mean scores (Fig. 10) showed very little variation from the ...
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... are four main hormones involved in the menstrual cycle ( Fig. 1): two of them, Progesterone and Estrogen, are released by the ovaries while the other two, Luteinizing Hormone (LH) and Follicle-Stimulating Hormone (FSH), are released by the pituitary gland. This gland is a brain structure that also plays a role in emotional processing ( Daban et al., 2005). Could the high levels of LH and FSH needed for ovulation to occur, cause mood ...
Citations
... In addition, differences in performance have been observed in NC women in the follicular phase compared to the luteal phase. While endogenous estradiol generally exerts positive effects and progesterone shows a bimodal (i.e., inverted U-shape) association with mood [37,38], no consistent relationships have been found between endogenous sex hormones and emotion recognition. The interaction between endogenous and synthetic sex hormones on the functional architecture of the human brain, and consequently on socio-affective processes such as mood and emotion recognition, is not known, as studies do not usually examine circulating synthetic sex hormones. ...
Oral contraceptive (OC) intake has been associated with alterations in functional brain architecture and socio-affective processes. However, most previous studies have been limited by cross-sectional designs and/or did not account for synthetic sex hormone concentrations. The aim of this longitudinal study was to determine the effects of starting vs discontinuing OCs on socio-affective functions such as mood and emotion cognition, and to identify their possible neuroendocrinological substrates.
To this end, 88 young healthy women performed the behavioral and fMRI measures twice, three to eight months apart: 26 natural cycling women twice during menstruation, 26 OC users twice during OC intake, 25 OC discontinuers and 11 OC starters before and after discontinuation or start, respectively. In addition to mean-based analyses, we used intersubject representational similarity analyses to determine relationships between interindividual variability in within-subject changes of hormone profiles, including concentrations of endogenous and synthetic hormones, region-specific resting state functional connectivity (parcelwise RSFC) and socio-affective measures.
Across the whole sample, interindividual patterns of changes in RSFC of fronto-parietal regions, parts of the left hippocampus and the right cerebellum reflected change patterns of progestogen levels. For the right superior orbitofrontal gyrus (OFG), a trinity of idiosyncratic patterns was found in changes of progestogens, RSFC and positive mood. Active OC intake was associated with higher self-reported depressive symptoms in OC discontinuers (and starters). Emotion recognition performance was not associated with changes in hormone profiles or RSFC.
Overall, progestogens rather than estrogens appear to be associated with functional brain architecture of the frontal and subcortical/cerebellar regions and positive mood. The right superior OFG represents a possible neural substrate for progestogen-induced changes in positive mood. This study indicates the importance of a multidimensional, longitudinal approach when being interested in effects of hormonal contraception on women’s brain and behavior.
... In addition, affective state supposedly impacts the recognition of valence-congruent emotions but impairs performance for valence-incongruent facial expressions (Schmid and Schmid Mast, 2010). Moreover, current affective state has been associated with fluctuations of ovarian hormones (Reed et al., 2008;Ocampo Rebollar et al., 2017). To account for a possible interplay of affective state and ovarian hormones on emotion recognition performance, we not only exploratively checked for relations of affective state with emotion recognition performance in different hormonal states, but also to ovarian hormone levels. ...
... Independent of emotion recognition, our findings support previous literature reporting a link between menstrual cycle and affective state (Reed et al., 2008;Ocampo Rebollar et al., 2017). As similarly shown by Ocampo Rebollar et al. (2017), the negative link between progesterone and positive affective state in the peri-ovulatory phase implies that pre-ovulatory women have more positive affective state which decreases as ovulation comes closer and progesterone levels start rising. ...
... Independent of emotion recognition, our findings support previous literature reporting a link between menstrual cycle and affective state (Reed et al., 2008;Ocampo Rebollar et al., 2017). As similarly shown by Ocampo Rebollar et al. (2017), the negative link between progesterone and positive affective state in the peri-ovulatory phase implies that pre-ovulatory women have more positive affective state which decreases as ovulation comes closer and progesterone levels start rising. In the early follicular phase, however, lower levels of progesterone were linked with worse affective state. ...
Accuracy in facial emotion recognition has shown to vary with ovarian hormones, both in naturally cycling women, as well as in women taking oral contraceptives. It remains uncertain however, if specific – endogenous and exogenous – hormonal levels selectively impact recognition of certain basic emotions (or neutral faces) and if this relationship coincides with certain affective states. Therefore, we investigated 86 women under different hormonal conditions and compared their performance in an emotion recognition task as well as self-reported measures of affective states. Based on self-reported cycle days and ovulation testing, the participants have been split into groups of naturally cycling women during their early follicular phase (fNC, n = 30), naturally cycling women during their peri-ovulatory phase (oNC, n = 26), and women taking oral contraceptives (OC, n = 30). Participants were matched for age and did not differ in education or neuropsychological abilities. Self-reported anxiety and depressive affective state scores were similar across groups, but current affective state turned out to be significantly more negative in fNC women. Independent of negative affective state, fNC women showed a significantly higher negativity bias in recognizing neutral faces, resulting in a lower recognition accuracy of neutral faces compared to oNC and OC women. In the OC group only, negative affective state was associated with lower recognition accuracy and longer response times for neutral faces. Furthermore, there was a significant, positive association between disgust recognition accuracy and negative affective state in the fNC group. Low progesterone levels during the early follicular phase were linked to higher negative affective state, whereas in the peri-ovulatory phase they were linked to elevated positive affective state. Overall, previous findings regarding impaired emotion recognition during OC-use were not confirmed. Synthetic hormones did not show a correlation with emotion recognition performance and affective state. Considering the important role of emotion recognition in social communication, the elevated negativity bias in neutral face recognition found for fNC women may adversely impact social interactions in this hormonal phase.
... Mechanistically, MC-related mood fluctuations may affect female addictive behaviors [16]. Compared to other phases, positive mood peaks during the follicular/ovulatory phases [17], whereas depressed mood increases pre-menstrually/menstrually alongside elevations in nicotine and alcohol use [7,[18][19][20]. Self-medication theory (SMT), which posits substance use reduces/controls negative affect [21], would predict increased cannabis use pre-menstrually/menstrually, versus other phases, to reduce/ control depressed mood. ...
Background and Aims
Reported rates of cannabis use among Canadian females are increasing. Female cannabis users progress to cannabis use disorder more rapidly than males (telescoping) and have higher rates of emotional disorder comorbidity. Addictive behaviors may change, along with mood and motivations, across the menstrual cycle (MC), particularly for females with pre‐menstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). This study aimed to determine whether increases in depressed mood and coping motives would predict increased cannabis use pre‐menstrually/menstrually, particularly among females with PMDD. We also assessed positive mood and enhancement motive ratings to establish specificity of predicted depressed mood and coping motive results.
Design
Observational study using data collected across 32 days using electronic daily diary methods.
Setting
Nova Scotia, Canada.
Participants
Sixty‐nine naturally‐cycling female cannabis users (Mage=29.25, SD=5.66) with and without retrospectively‐identified PMDD (via structured clinical interview) and prospectively‐identified PMDD (via elevated pre‐menstrual depressed mood). Self‐reported MC phase was validated using salivary progesterone concentrations.
Measurements
Depressed/positive mood, coping‐/enhancement‐motivated cannabis use, and cannabis use quantity.
Findings
Coping motives explained heightened cannabis use pre‐menstrually/menstrually in those with retrospectively‐identified PMDD. Depressed mood explained increased cannabis use menstrually in those with retrospectively‐/prospectively‐identified PMDD. Moreover, prospectively‐identified PMDD significantly moderated the relationship between depressed mood and cannabis use quantity menstrually. In those with prospectively‐identified PMDD, positive mood and enhancement motives were associated with decreased cannabis use during the follicular/ovulatory phases. Females with versus without retrospectively‐identified PMDD also displayed greater overall cannabis use quantity [M (SD)=3.44(2.84) standard joint equivalents versus 1.85(1.82), respectively; U=277.50, p=.008].
Conclusions
Depressed mood may explain heightened cannabis use menstrually in females with pre‐menstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). Coping motives may explain heightened cannabis use pre‐menstrually/menstrually in females with retrospectively‐identified PMDD.
... Women enduring feelings of depression/anxiety premenstrually expe- rience their strongest feelings of well-being during ovulation (Kiesner, 2011). Additionally, normally cycling women exhibit greater increases in positive affect around ovulation than women taking hormonal con- traceptives (i.e., with more stable hormones; Rebollar, Balaña, & Pastor, 2017). Phase-related mood variations are believed to arise from complex interactions between ovarian hormones and neural systems involved in mood (Amin, Canli, & Epperson, 2005;Dobbs & Braverman, 2013). ...
Background:
Alcohol use has been reported to fluctuate over women's menstrual cycles (MCs), with increased intake occurring premenstrually/menstrually (phases characterized by heightened negative affect) and during the ovulatory phase (a phase characterized by positive affect). This suggests women may drink for particular emotion-focused reasons at specific points in their cycles. However, no research had yet examined MC variability in drinking motives, or links between cycle-related changes in drinking motives and alcohol consumption.
Methods:
Ninety-four normally cycling women (Mage = 22.9 years old, SDage = 4.7) completed daily diary measures (via Smartphone surveys), with questions pertaining to state drinking motives and quantity of alcohol consumed for the course of a full MC.
Results:
Drinking motives differed by cycle phase. Women reported a slight increase in drinking to self-medicate for negative affect premenstrually, with drinking to cope peaking in the menstrual phase and declining mid-cycle. Women reported a slight increasing trend across the cycle in social motives for drinking, while enhancement motives remained relatively stable across the cycle. Cycle-related changes in drinking motives predicted increases in the quantity of alcohol consumed. Drinking to cope with negative affect predicted a greater number of drinks menstrually (days 1-5). While social motives predicted a greater number of drinks during the follicular and ovulatory phases (days 5-16), enhancement motives were unrelated to drinking quantity across cycle phase.
Conclusions:
Clinicians should be attentive to cycle phase when treating reproductive-aged women with alcohol disorders (e.g., encouraging the use of healthier means of coping with negative affect during menses).
Evidence accumulates that oral contraceptive (OC) use modulates various socio-affective behaviors, including empathic abilities. Endogenous and synthetic sex hormones, such as estrogens and progestogens, bind to receptor sites in brain regions (i.e. frontal, limbic, and cerebellar) involved in socio-affective processing. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the role of OC use in empathy. In a cross-sectional functional magnetic resonance imaging study, women in different hormonal states, including OC use (n = 46) or being naturally cycling in the early follicular (fNC: n = 37) or peri-ovulatory phase (oNC: n = 28), performed a visual, sentence-based empathy task. Behaviorally, OC users had lower empathy ratings than oNC women. Congruently, whole-brain analysis revealed significantly larger task-related activation of several brain regions, including the left dorsomedial prefrontal gyrus (dmPFG), left precentral gyrus, and left temporoparietal junction in oNC compared to OC women. In OC users, the activity of the left dmPFG and precentral gyrus was negatively associated with behavioral and self-reported affective empathy. Furthermore, empathy-related region-of-interest analysis indicated negative associations of brain activation with synthetic hormone levels in OC women. Overall, this multimodal, cross-sectional investigation of empathy suggests a role of OC intake in especially affective empathy and highlights the importance of including synthetic hormone levels in OC-related analyses.
Previous findings in healthy humans suggest that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) modulate emotional processing via earlier changes in attention. However, many previous studies have provided inconsistent findings. One possible reason for such inconsistencies is that these studies did not control for the influence of either sex or sex hormone fluctuations. To address this inconsistency, we administered 20 mg escitalopram or placebo for seven consecutive days in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled design to sixty healthy female participants with a minimum of 3 months oral contraceptive (OC) intake. Participants performed a modified version of an emotional flanker task before drug administration, after a single dose, after 1 week of SSRI intake, and after a 1-month wash-out period. Supported by Bayesian analyses, our results do not suggest a modulatory effect of escitalopram on behavioral measures of early attentional-emotional interaction in female individuals with regular OC use. While the specific conditions of our task may be a contributing factor, it is also possible that a practice effect in a healthy sample may mask the effects of escitalopram on the attentional-emotional interplay. Consequently, 1 week of escitalopram administration may not modulate attention toward negative emotional distractors outside the focus of attention in healthy female participants taking OCs. While further research in naturally cycling females and patient samples is needed, our results represent a valuable contribution toward the preclinical investigation of antidepressant treatment.
The Fertility-Assertiveness Hypothesis posits that women affect their environment and assert their desires more so during the fertile compared to non-fertile phase of their menstrual cycle. No research to date has examined whether this increase is evident in other psychological outcomes loosely related to assertiveness or whether it is attenuated by hormonal contraception. To address these gaps we implemented The Daily Cycle Diary, a worldwide daily diary study examining menstrual cycle and hormonal contraception induced shifts in assertiveness, self-efficacy, optimism, regulatory focus, impulsivity and risk-taking. In a fully pre-registered, quasi-experimental within-subject investigation, participants from 23 countries (939 menstrual cycles) provided daily data on their menstrual cycle characteristics and answered self-report questions on each day of their menstrual cycle. Self-efficacy robustly increased alongside fertility probability for naturally cycling women but not hormonal contraceptive users. Prevention-focus (a regulatory strategy that avoids negative outcomes) also increased with fertility probability but the effect was not robust. Menstruation was associated with lowered assertiveness as well as changes in three facets of impulsivity for all women, irrespective of contraceptive use. Exploratory plots showed that contraceptive users and naturally cycling women exhibit a variety of menstrual cycle induced psychological differences unrelated to cycling fertility. Given the prevalence of hormonal contraception use worldwide, future investigation of the menstrual cycle and hormonal contraceptive use on female psychology is of utmost importance.
The amygdala is central to emotional behavior, and the excitability level of the basolateral nucleus of the amygdala (BLA) is associated with the level of anxiety. The excitability of neuronal networks is significantly controlled by GABAergic inhibition. Here, we investigated whether GABAergic inhibition in the BLA is altered during the rat estrous cycle. In rat amygdala slices, most principal BLA neurons display spontaneous IPSCs (sIPSCs) in the form of “bursts” of inhibitory currents, occurring rhythmically at a frequency of about 0.5 Hz. The percentage of BLA neurons displaying sIPSC bursts, along with the inhibitory charge transferred by sIPSCs and the frequency of sIPSC bursts, were significantly increased during the estrus phase; increased inhibition was accompanied by reduced anxiety in the open field, the light-dark box, and the acoustic startle response tests. sIPSC bursts were blocked by ibuprofen, an antagonist of acid-sensing-1a channels (ASIC1a), whose activity is known to increase by decreasing temperature. A transient reduction in the temperature of the slice medium, strengthened the sIPSCs bursts; this effect was blocked in the presence of ibuprofen. Further analysis of the sIPSC bursts during estrus showed significantly stronger rhythmic inhibitory activity in early estrus, when body temperature drops, compared with late estrus. To the extent that these results may relate to humans, it is suggested that “a calmer amygdala” due to increased inhibitory activity may underlie the positive affect in women around ovulation time. ASIC1a may contribute to increased inhibition, with their activity facilitated by the body-temperature drop preceding ovulation.
Controlling impulsivity and delaying gratifications are key features of effective self-control. Delay Discounting (DD) indexes the ability to delay rewards and previous research has shown that discounting is influenced by affective states such as mood. According to the Somatic Marker Hypothesis (SMH), afferent somatic signals, such as mood, are carried by the vagus and can influence decision making. In the current study, we employed transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS), a novel non-invasive brain stimulation technique that stimulates the auricular branch of the afferent vagus nerve (located in the outer ear), to assess its effects on decision impulsivity, while taking into account individuals' mood and resting-state HRV as a possible confounding factor. Employing a within-subjects cross-over design, 94 participants received active or sham tVNS while performing delay discounting in two separate sessions. As compared to sham, active tVNS increased discounting, but only for individuals reporting lower positive mood, regardless of the level of negative mood reported. We evidence that the effect of tVNS on reward discounting depends on the level of positive mood. This result suggests that positive mood state might be a proxy of task-relevant arousal, likely influencing the effectiveness of afferent vagal stimulation on self-control processes, as temporal discounting.
