AUTHOR=Liu Mei , Zhang Xia , He Zhengming , Liang Yuan , Zou Bihong , Ma Xianjun , Gu Simeng , Wang Fushun 

TITLE=Opposite effects of estradiol and progesterone on woman's disgust processing

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychiatry

VOLUME=Volume 14 - 2023

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1161488

DOI=10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1161488

ISSN=1664-0640

ABSTRACT=Ovarian hormones play a critical role in emotion processing, which may be a major reason for the high rates of major depressive disorders in women. However, the exact roles of estradiol and progesterone in emotional processing remain unclear. To this end, we performed behavioral and rs-fMRI studies on the effects ovarian hormones on disgust emotion, which is the most important basic emotion for psychological disorders. Experiment 1 examined the specific influence of these two ovarian hormones on pathogen and moral disgust processing across the menstrual cycle using the single category implicit association test (SC-IAT) and explicit measures of disgust intensity task. In Experiment 2, we further explored the effects of the menstrual cycle on the amygdala and salience network resting-state functional connectivity. The behavioral results showed that women during the luteal phase had higher D scores and shorter response times (RTs) to disgust stimuli (for both pathogen and moral disgust stimuli) compared to the menses and follicular phases. In contrast, women during the follicular phase had fewer feelings of disgust and longer RTs to pathogen stimuli compared with that during the menses and luteal phases, but this effect was moderated by the intensity of the stimuli. Furthermore, there was no difference in feelings of moral disgust between the three cycle phases. rs-fMRI studies showed that women during the luteal phase have higher functional connectivity in the salience network than those in the follicular phase. Compared with the menstrual phase, women have lower functional connectivity in the amygdala during the follicular phase. In summary, a more negative attitude to disgust stimuli and the enhanced functional connectivity of the salience network during the luteal phase may be associated with high progesterone levels, whereas lower disgust feelings and reduced functional connectivity of the amygdala during the follicular phase may be associated with high estradiol levels.