Hormonal cycling in women provides a window of opportunity for psychoendocrinology.

Read Also

 The female sex offers a special window into the endocrinological investigation of brain function.   Indeed,  women's menstrual cycle,  pregnancy,  parturition (giving birth) and menopause (partial ovarian shutdown) all comprise moderate to substantial changes in their circulating steroid hormone levels.   Consequently,  the investigation of cognitive and brain changes accompanying these cycles and bifurcations may tell us all kinds of interesting things about how these hormones influence brain function.   I have a hunch that the large number of women researchers who have investigated behavioral variations as a function of the menstrual cycle have had ulterior motives,  of which two come to my mind.  Perhaps the most important one is that these women are simply interested in a part of their own lives which was for too long neglected by mainstream (male-dominated) research.   A second motive may have to do with an embarrassing situation for women that they, perhaps secretly,  would wish to combat:  that women's performance and mood varies as a function of their menstrual cycle,  potentially (though surely not usually) leading to disparaging attitudes on the part of male co-workers  -or so they might fear.    This is how I explain to myself the strange situation we scientists are in with regards to the effects of circulating female steroid hormones on cognition and behavior:     those conditions which would lend themselves,  by far, to more appropriate tests of the effect (parturition and menopause) have been neglected,  while that condition wherein hormonal variations are far less drastic (the menstrual cycle) has been extensively studied.