The following is a summary of the “Examining a window of vulnerability for affective symptoms in the mid-luteal phase of the menstrual cycle,” published in the January 2023 issue of Psychoneuroendocrinology by Guevarra, et al.

When a woman already suffers from a diagnosable mental health disorder, certain phases of her menstrual cycle may worsen her emotional symptoms. However, there is conflicting evidence on whether or not women without a clinical diagnosis experience fluctuating affective symptoms throughout the menstrual cycle. According to the window of vulnerability theory, women’s brains undergo systematic changes in the networks involved in affective processing during the mid-luteal phase of the menstrual cycle due to the natural rise in ovarian hormones that occurs at this time. 

Consequently, the model suggests that women are more vulnerable to developing affective symptoms in the middle of the luteal phase because they may be more sensitive to stress and recall negative events more vividly at that time. They examined the window of vulnerability model in a non-clinical sample using a 35-day longitudinal study design. Stress and three affective symptoms (anxious apprehension, anxious arousal, and anhedonic depression) were monitored daily in women who cycled naturally. They used multilevel modeling to examine the connections between stress, menstruation, and emotional symptoms at individual and population levels. 

Midway through the luteal phase, they observed elevated levels of anhedonic depression but not anxious apprehension or arousal. Anxious apprehension and anhedonic depression, but not anxious arousal, were also positively correlated with intrapersonal and interpersonal stress. In the middle of the luteal phase, these correlations did not strengthen. In sum, our results offer limited support for a vulnerable period for emotional symptoms during the middle of the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle. According to our research, stress predicts mood swings more accurately than a woman’s monthly cycle. Their results also emphasize the significance of assessing a wide range of negative affective symptoms, as they may be related to stress and the menstrual cycle in different ways.

Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306453022002992