Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University , Kanrin, Inuyama, Aichi, Japan.
Sci Rep. 2012;2:307. doi: 10.1038/srep00307. Epub 2012 Mar 8.
It is well known that adult humans detect images of snakes as targets more quickly than images of flowers as targets whether the images are in color or gray-scale. When such visual searches were performed by a total of 60 adult premenopausal healthy women in the present study to examine whether their performance would fluctuate across the phases of the menstrual cycle, snake detection was found to become temporarily enhanced during the luteal phase as compared to early or late follicular phases. This is the first demonstration of the existence of within-individual variation of the activity of the fear module, as a predictable change in cognitive strength, which appears likely to be due to the hormonal changes that occur in the menstrual cycle of healthy women.
众所周知，无论图像是彩色还是灰度，成年人对蛇的图像的检测速度比对花的图像的检测速度更快。当本研究中的 60 名绝经前成年健康女性总共进行这样的视觉搜索时，以检查她们的表现是否会在月经周期的各个阶段波动，发现与早期或晚期卵泡期相比，排卵后期蛇的检测暂时增强。这是首次证明恐惧模块的个体内活动存在可预测的认知强度变化，这似乎是由于健康女性月经周期中发生的激素变化所致。
