Estradiol modulates functional brain organization during the menstrual cycle
-
1
RWTH Aachen University, Germany
-
2
University Hospital Aachen, Germany
-
3
Durham University, United Kingdom
The majority of cognitive functions are lateralized to one of the cerebral hemispheres. Functional cerebral asymmetries (FCAs) are more pronounced in men, and change across the menstrual cycle in women, indicating that sex hormones such as progesterone and estradiol might play an important role in modulating FCAs. According to the model proposed by Hausmann and Güntürkün [1], the left and right hemispheres act as partially independent processors which each process stimuli simultaneously, entailing the need for regulatory mechanisms to coordinate and integrate outputs from both hemispheres. The interhemispheric inhibition across the corpus callosum might be the key mechanism in coordinating the hemispheres and determining FCAs. It is further assumed that in the course of the menstrual cycle steroid hormones reduce FCAs. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study the influence of steroid hormones on the activated neural networks and on interhemispheric connectivity during a verbal task. Normally cycling, healthy women without hormonal contraceptives were scanned while they performed a word-matching task twice during the menstrual cycle: during the menstrual (1. – 3. cycle day) and during the follicular phase (9. – 11. day). The behavioral data identified a clear left hemisphere advantage for the task during both cycle phases, which was significantly increased during the menstrual phase. The area most consistently activated across cycle phases is the left IFG, an area which has been shown to be selectively involved with the processing of semantic aspects of verbal information. By use of a connectivity analysis, we showed that the inhibitory influence of the left IFG onto the homotopic area of the right hemisphere was significantly stronger during the menstrual phase. Further, we found a significant correlation of interhemispheric inhibition with estradiol level, while no significant correlation with progesterone level was identified. In support of the model of Hausmann and Güntürkün [1], our functional neuroimaging data directly depict the mechanism behind the change of FCAs across the menstrual cycle. Further, our data point to estradiol as one of the key factors for the modulation of interhemispheric inhibition and thereby for changes of FCAs between the menstrual and the follicular phase. These results confirm previous studies revealing striking neuromodulatory properties of gonadal steroid hormones on the dynamics of functional brain organization in the female brain.
References
1. Hausmann M, Güntürkün O. (2000). Steroid fluctuations modify functional cerebral asymmetries: the hypothesis of progesterone-mediated interhemispheric decoupling. Neuropsychologia; 38:1362-74.
Conference:
10th International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience, Bodrum, Türkiye, 1 Sep - 5 Sep, 2008.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Cerebral Asymmetry
Citation:
Weis
S,
Kellermann
T,
Vohn
R,
Stoffers
B,
Hausmann
M and
Sturm
W
(2008). Estradiol modulates functional brain organization during the menstrual cycle.
Conference Abstract:
10th International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience.
doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.09.2009.01.151
Copyright:
The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers.
They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters.
The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated.
Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed.
For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions.
Received:
05 Dec 2008;
Published Online:
05 Dec 2008.
*
Correspondence:
Susanne Weis, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany, SWeis@UKAachen.de