Menstrual cycle symptomatology during the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of interoceptive sensibility and psychological health

The literature on the COVID-19 pandemic has shown the importance of investigating its impact on mental health during this sensitive period, also in relation to the female menstrual cycle. To this end, interceptive sensibility has emerged as a fundamental construct for studying the mind-body interaction among psychosomatic and pain symptoms, particularly through the distinction between two attentional styles (namely, a “mindful” and a “non-mindful” sensibility). The aim of the following study is to verify the role of mental health and interoceptive sensibility on menstrual symptoms in women of childbearing age, during the pandemic, as well as to identify the specific contribution of the existing dimensions of interoceptive sensibility in the prediction of symptoms' severity. Data were collected through an online survey, for which 5294 women responded on demographic information, menstrual history, symptoms' disturbance, and completed the Italian versions of the GHQ-12 and the MAIA. The analyses showed that symptoms were strongly correlated to either the GHQ-12 and the MAIA subscales Noticing, Emotional Awareness, Trusting and Not-Worrying. This result was further verified via a hierarchical regression, which revealed that the same interoceptive dimensions and mental health strongly predicted the intensity of menstrual symptoms (R2 = 0.177, ΔR2 = 0.143) compared to other considered dimensions (R2 = 0.180, ΔR2 = 0.002). Results are partially in line with the premises but suggest that mental health has a strong impact on the experience of the menstrual cycle and that only a few interoceptive dimensions may be relevant in explaining the severity of menstrual symptoms. It is here suggested that noticing internal bodily signals and being aware of emotional states might become dysfunctional if not reconciled with a good ability to self-regulate internal states, but may rather contribute to the perpetuation of the ‘vicious cycle’ of heightened affective and attentional reactions to interoceptive sensations

Amygdala responses to masked and low spatial frequency fearful faces. A preliminary fMRI study in panic disorder

Previous studies have demonstrated amygdala activation in response to fearful faces even if presented below the threshold of conscious visual perception. It has also been proposed that subcortical regions are selectively sensitive to low spatial frequency (LSF) information. However, chronic hyperarousal may reduce amygdala activation in panic disorder (PD). Our aim was to establish whether the amygdala is engaged by masked and LSF fearful faces in PD as compared to healthy subjects. Neutral faces were used as the mask stimulus. Thirteen PD patients (seven females, six males; mean age=29.1 (S.D: 5.9)) and 15 healthy volunteers (seven females, eight males; mean age=27.9 (S.D. 4.5)) underwent two passive viewing tasks during a 3T functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) as follows: 1) presentation of faces with fearful versus neutral expressions (17ms) using a backward masking procedure and 2) presentation of the same faces whose spatial frequency contents had been manipulated by low-pass filtering. Level of awareness was confirmed by a forced choice fear-detection task. Whereas controls showed bilateral activation to fearful masked faces versus neutral faces, patients failed to show activation within the amygdala. LSF stimuli did not elicit amygdala response in either group, contrary to the view that LSF information plays a crucial role in the processing of facial expressions in the amygdala. Findings suggest maladaptive amygdala responses to potentially threatening visual stimuli in PD patients