title: Menstrual mood disorders are associated with blunted sympathetic reactivity to stress.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Few studies have directly compared women with a menstrually related mood disorder (MRMD) with women who have suffered from depression for stress reactivity phenotypes. It is unclear whether blunted responses to stress in women with a MRMD reflect a unique phenotype of MRMDs or may be explained by a history of depression.
  
  
  METHODS
  We assessed cardiovascular reactivity to stress in four groups: 1) Women with a MRMD without a history of depression (n=37); 2) women with a MRMD plus a history of depression (n=26); 3) women without a MRMD and without a history of depression (n=43); and 4) women without a MRMD but with a history of depression (n=20).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Women with a MRMD showed blunted myocardial (heart rate and cardiac index) reactivity to mental stress compared to non-MRMD women, irrespective of histories of depression. Hypo-reactivity to stress predicted greater premenstrual symptom severity in the entire sample. Women with a MRMD showed blunted norepinephrine and diastolic blood pressure stress reactivity relative to women with no MRMD, but only when no history of depression was present. Both MRMD women and women with depression histories reported greater negative subjective responses to stress relative to their non-MRMD and never depressed counterparts.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our findings support the assertion that a blunted stress reactivity profile represents a unique phenotype of MRMDs and also underscore the importance of psychiatric histories to stress reactivity. Furthermore, our results emphasize the clinical relevance of myocardial hypo-reactivity to stress, since it predicts heightened premenstrual symptom severity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Rhodes College, TN, USA. Electronic address: klatzkinr@rhodes.edu.
authors.forename: Rebecca R
authors.initials: RR
authors.lastname: Klatzkin
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
authors.forename: Adomas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bunevicius
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
authors.forename: Catherine A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Forneris
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Girdler
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000209:etiology*; D001794:Blood Pressure; D003863:Depression / Q000209:etiology*; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000150:complications*; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D009638:Norepinephrine / Q000097:blood; D010641:Phenotype; D011293:Premenstrual Syndrome / Q000523:psychology*; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000097:blood / Q000503:physiopathology*
chemical_list: D009638:Norepinephrine
keywords: Depression; Menstrually related mood disorders; Premenstrual dysphoric disorder; Reactivity; Stress; Sympathetic nervous system