Processing emotions: Effects of menstrual cycle phase and premenstrual symptoms on the startle reflex, facial EMG and heart rate.

Processing emotions: Effects of menstrual cycle phase and premenstrual symptoms on the startle reflex, facial EMG and heart rate. Behav Brain Res. 2018 Jun 06;: Authors: Armbruster D, Grage T, Kirschbaum C, Strobel A Abstract Emotional reactivity varies across the menstrual cycle although physiological findings are not entirely consistent. We assessed facial EMG and heart rate (HR) changes in healthy free cycling women (N = 45) with an emotional startle paradigm both during the early follicular and the late luteal phase, verified by repeated salivary 17β-estradiol, progesterone and testosterone assessments. Cycle phase impacted startle responses with larger magnitudes during the luteal phase. Notably, this effect was only present when premenstrual symptoms and sequence of lab sessions were included as co-variates. At rest, participants showed a tendency towards higher HR and reduced high frequency (HF) power during the luteal phase indicating reduced parasympathetic tone. HF power was also negatively associated with startle magnitudes. HR changes in response to emotional images differed between the two cycle phases. Initial HR deceleration was more marked during the follicular phase particularly when viewing negative pictures. However, cycle phase did not significantly impact corrugator and zygomaticus activity in response to emotional pictures. Among the three gonadal steroids, correlation patterns were most consistent for test...
Source: Behavioural Brain Research - Category: Neurology Authors: Tags: Behav Brain Res Source Type: research