Krug R, Plihal W, Fehm H L, Born J
University of Bamberg, Germany.
Psychophysiology. 2000 Jan;37(1):111-22.
In this study, we examined changes in the event-related potential (ERP) to stimuli with and without reproductive significance occurring during the menstrual cycle. Eleven spontaneously cycling women were tested during three menstrual phases (menses, ovulatory phase, luteal phase) differing in plasma concentrations of gonadal hormones. ERPs were recorded while subjects were presented with slides showing pictures from four different stimulus categories (sexual stimuli, babies, people occupied with body care, ordinary people). Slides were presented randomly in the context of two tasks, requiring either affective processing (i.e., to judge the emotional content of a slide as positive, neutral, or negative) or structural processing (i.e., to estimate the number of parallel thin lines inserted in each picture). Menstrual phase primarily affected a late positive component (LPC) peaking 550-600 ms poststimulus. The effects were as follows: (i) During the ovulatory phase, amplitude of the LPC to sexual stimuli was larger than that evoked by the other stimulus categories. (ii) This relationship was not apparent during the other menstrual phases or (iii) during the ovulatory phase when the task required structural processing. The ovulatory increase in LPC positivity to sexual stimuli suggests a greater valence of these stimuli during a phase of increased sexual desire. The data indicate a specific effect of the menstrual cycle on the processing of sexual stimuli that increases with deeper emotional processing.
在本研究中，我们检测了月经周期中出现的、具有或不具有生殖意义的刺激所引发的事件相关电位（ERP）的变化。我们对11名自然月经周期的女性在三个月经阶段（月经期、排卵期、黄体期）进行了测试，这三个阶段的性腺激素血浆浓度有所不同。当向受试者呈现显示来自四种不同刺激类别的图片（性刺激、婴儿、进行身体护理的人、普通人）的幻灯片时，记录ERP。幻灯片在两项任务的背景中随机呈现，这两项任务分别要求进行情感加工（即判断幻灯片的情感内容是积极、中性还是消极）或结构加工（即估计每张图片中插入的平行细线的数量）。月经阶段主要影响刺激后550 - 600毫秒达到峰值的晚期正成分（LPC）。影响如下：（i）在排卵期，对性刺激的LPC幅度大于其他刺激类别所引发的幅度。（ii）在其他月经阶段或（iii）在排卵期当任务要求进行结构加工时，这种关系不明显。排卵期LPC对性刺激的阳性增加表明在性欲增强阶段这些刺激具有更高的效价。数据表明月经周期对性刺激加工有特定影响，且随着情感加工加深而增强。
