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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Endocrinol.
Sec. Adrenal Endocrinology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fendo.2024.1399243

Depression and anxiety in premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) in relation to serum cortisol across the entire menstrual cycle and in response to the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST)

Provisionally accepted
Ajna Hamidovic Ajna Hamidovic 1*Shahd Smadi Shahd Smadi 2Soojeong Cho Soojeong Cho 3John M. Davis John M. Davis 2
  • 1 University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, United States
  • 2 Department of Psychiatry, College of Medicine, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States
  • 3 College of Pharmacy, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    While the function of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis in women with premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) is preserved at rest, they exhibit a blunted cortisol output in response to processing acute stress. In the present study, we investigated premenstrual depression and irritability subscales in relation to basal cortisol across the six subphases of the menstrual cycle as well as an acute stress challenge as a means to conduct a more proximal analysis of premenstrual symptomatology in contrast to the diagnosticlevel evaluation that has yielded negative results for association with cortisol at rest.We constructed general linear models to assess the relationships between serum cortisol and premenstrual symptomatology (depression and irritability) in PMDD and healthy control participants: (1) across the menstrual cycle, and (2) across the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) procedure.Both symptoms correlated significantly with serum cortisol in the PMDD group across the menstrual cycle while none of the correlations were significant in the healthy control group. The symptoms did not significantly correlate with cortisol output in response to the TSST in either group.Strict inclusion/exclusion criteria with questionable generalizability.The present results clarify the importance of basal cortisol in PMDD and point to different mechanisms of premenstrual affective symptom development in the context of tonic vs dynamic HPA axis demand.

    Keywords: Premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), Depression, Anxiety, cortisol, Menstrual Cycle

    Received: 11 Mar 2024; Accepted: 20 Jun 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Hamidovic, Smadi, Cho and Davis. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Ajna Hamidovic, University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, United States

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