From Menarche to Menopause: Psychoneuroendocrinology Across the Female Reproductive Lifespan

As reproductive hormones rise and begin to fluctuate with puberty and the beginning of the menstrual cycle (i.e., menarche), there is substantially increased risk of affective illness for females compared to males. Additional risk is associated with reproductive transition events characterized by dramatic hormone changes, including the decrease in progesterone and estradiol during the premenstrual phase, the abrupt withdrawal from high pregnancy hormone levels during the postpartum period, and the turbulent hormone flux that occurs during pubertal and menopausal transitions. As such, a differential sensitivity to normal changes in reproductive hormones during specific reproductive transition events may precipitate or exacerbate affective symptoms in susceptible women. Using a model of mood disorder susceptibility in which rapid and abrupt changes in reproductive hormones may trigger the onset of affective illness in vulnerable females, this symposium will present novel findings on psychosocial and biological mechanisms underlying hormone-related, transdiagnostic affective state change spanning the female reproductive lifespan – from menarche to menopause. Following a brief introduction by the Chair, Elizabeth Andersen, the first speaker, Hannah Klusmann, will present methods and recommendations for determining ovulation status in peripubertal females within one year of menarche and how mood sensitivity to hormone flux across the menstrual cycle differs by ovulation status. Katja Schmalenberger will present recent findings on the coupling of heart rate variability suppression and the cyclical increase in mood symptoms during the midluteal menstrual cycle phase. The third speaker, Crystal Schiller, will discuss findings from three studies that used a sex steroid manipulation in women with a history of postpartum depression to determine functional neuroimaging correlates of postpartum irritability symptoms. Danielle Swales’ presentation on the interaction of life stress and estradiol on reward processing during the menopause transition will conclude the symposium.