Protopopescu Xenia, Pan Hong, Altemus Margaret, Tuescher Oliver, Polanecsky Margaret, McEwen Bruce, Silbersweig David, Stern Emily
Functional Neuroimaging Laboratory, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York, NY 10021, USA.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2005 Nov 1;102(44):16060-5. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0502818102. Epub 2005 Oct 24.
The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) has been implicated in the representation of emotional stimuli, assignment of emotional valence/salience to stimuli, stimulus-reinforcement association learning, motivation, and socio-emotional control. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging in female subjects without premenstrual mood symptoms, we found that OFC activity to emotional linguistic stimuli varies depending on the menstrual cycle phase. Specifically, anterior-medial OFC activity for negative vs. neutral stimuli was increased premenstrually and decreased postmenstrually. The inverse pattern was seen in the lateral OFC. These findings suggest that specific subregional OFC activity to emotional stimuli is modulated across the menstrual cycle. The data also demonstrate that menstrual cycle phase is an important consideration in further studies attempting to elucidate the neural substrates of affective representation.
眶额皮质（OFC）与情绪刺激的表征、赋予刺激情绪效价/显著性、刺激-强化关联学习、动机及社会情绪控制有关。在没有经前情绪症状的女性受试者中使用功能磁共振成像，我们发现OFC对情绪性语言刺激的活动会因月经周期阶段而异。具体而言，经前负性刺激与中性刺激相比，前内侧OFC的活动增加，而月经后则减少。外侧OFC则呈现相反的模式。这些发现表明，OFC特定亚区域对情绪刺激的活动在整个月经周期中受到调节。数据还表明，月经周期阶段是进一步研究试图阐明情感表征神经基础时的一个重要考虑因素。
