Abstract
Women show increased predisposition for certain psychiatric disorders, such as depression, that are associated with disturbances in the integration of emotion and cognition. While this suggests that sex hormones need to be considered as modulating factors in the regulation of emotion, we still lack a sound understanding of how the menstrual cycle impacts emotional states and cognitive function. Though signals for the influence of the menstrual cycle on the integration of emotion and cognition have appeared as secondary findings in numerous behavioral and neuroimaging studies, this has only very rarely been the primary research goal. This review summarizes evidence: (1) that the menstrual cycle modulates the integration of emotional and cognitive processing on a behavioral level, and (2) that this change in behavior can be associated with functional, molecular and structural changes in the brain during a specific menstrual cycle phase. The growing evidence for menstrual cycle-specific differences suggests a modulating role for sex hormones on the neural networks supporting the integration of emotional and cognitive information. It will further be discussed what methodological aspects need to be considered to capture the role of the menstrual cycle in the emotion-cognition interplay more systematically.
Highlights
Sex hormones have been shown to influence emotional states and cognition (Schmidt et al, 1998; Bloch et al, 2000)
Recent fMRI results corroborate the link between dopamine and the menstrual cycle: performance in a working memory task increased with dopaminergic transmission rate in the late follicular phase but decreased with dopaminergic transmission rate in the early follicular phase and could be predicted by activation of PFC in both conditions (Jacobs and D’Esposito, 2011)
Menstrual cycle-dependent changes have been demonstrated in reward-related behavior and to interact with dopaminergic transmission
Summary
Sex hormones have been shown to influence emotional states and cognition (Schmidt et al, 1998; Bloch et al, 2000). CHANGES IN THE REWARD-RELATED NEURAL SYSTEM ACROSS THE MENSTRUAL CYCLE Dopamine represents a key regulator in the integration of cognitive and emotional information processing in the basal ganglia and has been implicated in synaptic plasticity If these preliminary findings can be replicated in a larger sample, this would argue for the menstrual cycle to impact a major neurochemical axis relevant to numerous neuropsychiatric diseases that display sex-disparity, such as attention deficit disorder, schizophrenia, addiction, and Parkinson’s. Recent fMRI results corroborate the link between dopamine and the menstrual cycle: performance in a working memory task increased with dopaminergic transmission rate (indicated by catechol-O-methyltransferase, COMT, enzyme activity) in the late follicular phase but decreased with dopaminergic transmission rate in the early follicular phase and could be predicted by activation of PFC in both conditions (Jacobs and D’Esposito, 2011) These findings suggest that the hormonal fluctuations caused by the menstrual cycle set the stage for a dynamic modulation of cognition and emotion by dopaminergic transmission. To directly examine the notion that the reward system is influenced by menstrual cycle phase, a study exploring monetary reward in a counter-balanced intra-individual design collected www.frontiersin.org
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