Assessing brain morphological correlates of premenstrual symptoms in young healthy females

Abstract

Although 90% of females with a menstrual cycle will experience premenstrual symptoms in their reproductive years, it is estimated that 20% experience treatment-warranted emotional, behavioral, or somatic symptoms in the premenstrual phase of their menstrual cycle. It has been hypothesized that premenstrual symptoms might be partly attributed to the brain’s sensitivity to menstrual cycle-related hormonal fluctuations, which may be modulated by individual differences in the structural characteristics of the brain. Studies with continuous operationalizations of symptom measures are needed to characterize the neural correlates of premenstrual symptoms in the general population. In a population-based sample of 265 non-pregnant females aged 23-43 years, we tested for associations between self-reported premenstrual symptom load and T1-weighted imaging-based brain measures of cortical thickness, volume, and surface area as well as subcortical volumes. After corrections for multiple comparison, linear models including age revealed significant positive associations between premenstrual symptom load and thickness of the left transverse temporal gyrus and the volume of the left posterior cingulate cortex. These findings partly overlap with previous brain morphological findings in individuals with PMS and could possibly represent a non-phase dependent correlate of premenstrual symptoms.