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Neuroimaging the Menstrual Cycle and Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder

  • Women's Mental Health (CN Epperson, Section Editor)
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Abstract

Knowledge of gonadal hormone-related influences on human brain anatomy, function, and chemistry is scarce. The present review scrutinized organizational and functional neuroimaging correlates of the menstrual cycle and premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). Supportive evidence of cyclic short-term structural and functional brain plasticity in response to gonadal hormonal modulation is provided. The paucity of studies, sparsity and discordance of findings, and weaknesses in study design at present hinder the drawing of firm conclusions. Ideal study designs should comprise high-resolution multimodal neuroimaging (e.g., MRI, DTI, rs-fMRI, fMRI, PET), hormones, genetic, and behavioral longitudinal assessments of healthy women and PMDD patients at critical time points of the menstrual cycle phase (i.e., early follicular phase, late follicular phase, mid-luteal phase) in a counter-balanced setup. Studies integrating large-scale brain network structural, functional, and molecular neuroimaging, as well as treatment data, will deepen the understanding of neural state, disorder, and treatment markers.

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Acknowledgments

The work was partially supported by funds from the Swedish Society of Medicine (SLS-331991), Marta Lundqvist and Tore Nilson foundation, and the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research to E.C. (FAS: 2011–0627), and the Swedish Research Council to I.SP. (VR: 521-2013-2339).

Compliance with Ethics Guidelines

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Conflict of Interest

Erika Comasco has no conflict of interest to declare.

Inger Sundström-Poromaa serves occasionally on advisory boards or act as invited speaker at scientific meetings for MSD, Novo Nordisk, Bayer Health Care, and Lundbeck A/S.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neuroscience, Uppsala University, BMC, Box 593, 751 24, Uppsala, Sweden

    Erika Comasco

  2. Department of Women’s and Children’s Health, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Erika Comasco & Inger Sundström-Poromaa

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  1. Erika Comasco
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  2. Inger Sundström-Poromaa
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Correspondence to Erika Comasco.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Women’s Mental Health

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Comasco, E., Sundström-Poromaa, I. Neuroimaging the Menstrual Cycle and Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder. Curr Psychiatry Rep 17, 77 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-015-0619-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-015-0619-4

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