Metabolic and hormone influences on emotion processing during menopause

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Endocrinology
• Metabolic Health

Background:

• Menopause transition commonly involves emotion regulation disturbances and depressive symptoms.
• Reproductive hormone levels show no direct correlation with depressive symptoms.
• Metabolic function's role in menopause-related mood symptoms requires further investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To determine the role of metabolic function, specifically long-term glucose load, in mood symptoms during menopause.
• To investigate the association between menopause status, metabolic factors, and neural activation during emotional discrimination.

Main Methods:

• Studied 54 women across premenopause, perimenopause, and postmenopause stages.
• Assessed mood, emotion regulation, and neural activation using behavioral and functional MRI.
• Measured glycated hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) for long-term glucose load and Follicle-Stimulating Hormone (FSH) levels.

Main Results:

• Emotionally unpleasant stimuli activated amygdala and cognitive association regions (prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate, TPO junction, hippocampus).
• Cognitive association region activity increased with menopause stage, with specific activations noted in perimenopausal and postmenopausal women.
• Higher HbA1c correlated with negative interpretation bias and increased cognitive region recruitment; FSH levels correlated with negative mood.

Conclusions:

• Metabolic factors (HbA1c) and hormonal changes (FSH) interact to influence emotion regulation during menopause.
• This interaction may increase the risk for depression and negative mood symptoms in menopausal women.
• Age was not found to be a significant factor in the observed behavioral or neural patterns.