Survey study, 2014
Does how women pay attention to space change during the menstrual cycle?
Slight changes were found in some attention tasks during different cycle phases, but the menstrual cycle affected performance less than biological sex did. Brain stimulation did not improve women's attention performance.
What they did
Healthy women were tested during three menstrual cycle phases: menses, follicular, and luteal. Men were also tested. Participants completed two attention tests: one involving finding the middle of a line, and another on a computer. Some tests included brain stimulation to the left parietal cortex.
What they found
Women's attention abilities were dominated by the right side of the brain, similar to men. During the menstrual phase, women showed a rightward bias in the line test, like men did. Brain stimulation did not improve women's performance on either test. In men, brain stimulation improved performance on the computer-based attention task.
What it means for you
Being male or female matters more for attention than menstrual cycle phase does. Hormone changes during the cycle may slightly affect attention, but the effect is small. The brain stimulation method tested here did not help women's attention. More research in real-world settings is needed.
3
menstrual cycle phases tested
2
attention tests used
About the study
- Original title
- Effects of anodal TDCS stimulation of left parietal cortex on visual spatial attention tasks in men and women across menstrual cycle
- Authors
- de Tommaso M, Invitto S, Ricci K et al.
- Journal
- Neuroscience letters
- Year
- 2014
- Study design
- Survey study
- What was tested
- Transcranial direct current brain stimulation
- Read the paper
- doi.org/10.1016/j.neulet.2014.05.014