Abstract
Women with premenstrual syndrome (PMS) regularly experience mental and physical symptoms that negatively affect their quality of life. An association between PMS and working memory deficits in premenstrual women has been suggested but remains unclear. The present study assessed the effects of PMS on working memory in 15 women with and 26 without PMS. To assess working memory performance, candidates were asked to perform n-back (0-, 1-, and 2-back) tasks in the luteal and follicular phases of their cycle. In the 2-back task, the correct response rate in the PMS group was 85.9±2.0%, which was marginally lower than the without PMS group (p ＝.07). In the Profile of Mood States questionnaire, there were significant differences in the total mood disturbance (p=.006) and “ depression-dejection ”(p=.043) scores between the groups. There were no significant differences in self-rated depression scale scores or sex hormone levels between these groups during the luteal and follicular phases. Our findings suggest that the negative mood in the luteal phase may be a trigger for reduced working memory performance in women with PMS.
