Assessing brain morphological correlates of premenstrual symptoms in young healthy females

Abstract

While 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. Premenstrual symptoms have been 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. In a population-based sample of 292 non-pregnant females aged 23–43 years, we tested for associations between self-reported premenstrual symptom load and T1-weighted MRI based brain measures of cortical thickness, volume, and surface area as well as subcortical volumes, not controlling for menstrual cycle phase. After corrections for multiple comparison, linear models including age revealed significant positive associations between premenstrual symptom load and the volume of the left posterior cingulate cortex. Item-level analyses confirmed that the association with overall symptom load were not driven by specific symptom domains. 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.