Symposium 53 - Novel Methods in Studying Effects of the Menstrual Cycle on Mood and Behavior: Implications for Research and Practice

Chair(s)

• JP

  Jessica Peters, Ph.D. (she/her/hers)

  Assistant Professor
  Alpert Medical School of Brown University
  Providence, RI, United States

Discussant(s)

• SC

  Sheila Crowell, Ph.D. (she/her/hers)

  Professor of Psychology
  University of Oregon
  Eugene, OR, United States

Presenter(s)

• 

  Peyton Miyares, B.A. (she/her/hers)

  University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill
  Chapel Hill, NC, United States
• 

  Tory Eisenlohr-Moul, Ph.D.

  Associate Professor of Psychiatry
  University of Illinois at Chicago
  Chicago, IL, United States
• JP

  Jessica Peters, Ph.D. (she/her/hers)

  Assistant Professor
  Alpert Medical School of Brown University
  Providence, RI, United States
• AS

  Allison Stumper, Ph.D. (she/her/hers)

  Postdoctoral Research Fellow
  Alpert Medical School of Brown University
  Providence, RI, United States

Strong individual differences in neural sensitivity to normal hormone changes (hormone sensitivity) across the menstrual cause some individuals to experience severe symptoms (PMDD) or worsening of pre-existing symptoms (PME) in as many as 60% of those with affective disorders. Despite growing evidence of the menstrual cycle as a critical source of symptom variability, scientists and clinicians often fail to consider the menstrual cycle when studying within-person changes in symptoms and when designing treatments and delivering interventions. This symposium aims to advance clinical researchers’ and practitioners’ understanding of the phenomenology of menstrual cycle-exacerbation of symptoms while introducing and applying cutting-edge methods for assessing menstrual cycle effects.

Assessing menstrually-related effects is complex, requiring analysis of daily prospective symptom ratings. Established methods categorize the continuous process of hormone flux and may fail to account for differences in cycle dynamics across individuals. These challenges increase in reproductive transition points, such as puberty, when menstrual cycles are irregular and potentially anovulatory. The projects presented together demonstrate development and iterative applications of several novel approaches to addressing these issues.

First, Peyton Miyares, a clinical doctoral student, will present the development and application of calculating hormone-mood synchrony to examine relationships between changes in daily hormones and changes in mood, in adolescents. This approach effectively examines affective sensitivity to both E2 and P4 across irregular (and even anovulatory) menstrual cycles.

Dr. Tory Eisenlohr-Moul will present Phase-Aligned Cycle Time Scaling (PACTS), an algorithm for coding continuous cycle time to precisely and robustly model menstrual cycle data, developed using large datasets of menstrual cycle data and tested against data with daily hormone values. She will present the R package now freely available for use and discuss applications for psychological research and clinical purposes.

Dr. Jessica Peters will present work applying PACTS to a large sample of menstruating adults recruited for elevated borderline personality disorder features. She use generalized additive models to characterizing hormone sensitivity within the full sample, followed by participant-level models to characterize the degree and timing of individual hormone sensitivity and examine correlates with specific diagnoses.

Dr. Ally Stumper will extend these methods to adolescent menstrual cycle data to demonstrate feasibility of using cycle-scaling and generalized additive models with adolescent samples to evaluate dimensions of affective hormone sensitivity. She will discuss both benefits to these approaches when applied to adolescent cycle data and potential limitations.

Finally, Dr. Sheila Crowell, an expert in emotion dysregulation across development and in reproductive psychiatry, will discuss the findings presented in the context of reproductive psychological disorders and affective disorders more broadly, including implications for both research and clinical practice.

Presentations:

• 12:21 PM - 12:42 PM CST

  (SYM 53) Hormone-mood Synchrony: A Novel Methodology to Examine the Link Between Ovarian Steroid Changes and Mood Symptoms in Female Adolescents
  

  Speaker: Peyton Miyares, B.A. (she/her/hers) – University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill

  Co-author: Elizabeth Wilson, M.A. – UNC Chapel Hill

  Co-author: Elizabeth Andersen, Ph.D. – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• 12:42 PM - 1:03 PM CST

  (SYM 53) Standardizing Continuous Menstrual Cycle Measurement in Research and Clinical Practice: Introducing the Menstrualcycler Package for Phase-aligned Cycle Time Scaling (PACTS)
  

  Speaker: Tory A. Eisenlohr-Moul, Ph.D. – University of Illinois at Chicago

  Co-author: Anisha nagpal, MD PHD candidate (she/her/hers) – UIC
• 1:03 PM - 1:24 PM CST

  (SYM 53) Applying Novel Group and Idiographic Modeling of Menstrual Cycle Exacerbation to Adults with Elevated Borderline Personality Disorder Symptoms
  

  Speaker: Jessica R. Peters, Ph.D. (she/her/hers) – Alpert Medical School of Brown University

  Co-author: Allison Stumper, Ph.D. (she/her/hers) – Alpert Medical School of Brown University

  Co-author: Tory A. Eisenlohr-Moul, Ph.D. – University of Illinois at Chicago
• 1:24 PM - 1:45 PM CST

  (SYM 53) An Examination of Adolescent Affective Sensitivity Using Novel Cycle Scaling Methods
  

  Speaker: Allison Stumper, Ph.D. (she/her/hers) – Alpert Medical School of Brown University

  Co-author: Jessica R. Peters, Ph.D. (she/her/hers) – Alpert Medical School of Brown University

  Co-author: Elizabeth Andersen, Ph.D. – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill