title: Affective responsiveness is influenced by intake of oral contraceptives.
abstract: Despite the widespread use of oral contraceptive pills (OCs), little is known about their impact on psychological processes and emotional competencies. Recent data indicate impaired emotion recognition in OC users compared to naturally cycling females. Building upon these findings, the current study investigated the influence of OC use on three components of empathy, i.e., emotion recognition, perspective-taking, and affective responsiveness. We compared naturally cycling women to two groups of OC users, one being tested in their pill-free week and one in the phase of active intake. Whereas groups did not differ in emotion recognition and perspective-taking, an effect of pill phase was evident for affective responsiveness: Females currently taking the pill showed better performance than those in their pill-free week. These processing advantages complement previous findings on menstrual cycle effects and thereby suggest an association with changes in endogenous and exogenous reproductive hormones. The current study highlights the need for future research to shed more light on the neuroendocrine alterations accompanying OC intake.
authors.affiliation: RWTH Aachen, Medical Faculty, Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Aachen, Germany; JARA - Translational Brain Medicine, Jülich/Aachen, Germany; JARA - BRAIN Institute I, Jülich/Aachen, Germany. Electronic address: sradke@ukaachen.de.
authors.forename: Sina
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Radke
authors.affiliation: RWTH Aachen, Medical Faculty, Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Aachen, Germany; JARA - Translational Brain Medicine, Jülich/Aachen, Germany; Institute for Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-1), Research Center Jülich, Jülich, Germany; University of Tübingen, Medical Faculty, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Tübingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Birgit
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Derntl
mesh_terms: D000339:Affect / Q000187:drug effects*; D003278:Contraceptives, Oral, Hormonal / Q000494:pharmacology*; D004644:Emotions / Q000187:drug effects; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008597:Menstrual Cycle / Q000187:drug effects; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000187:drug effects; D012931:Social Environment; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D003278:Contraceptives, Oral, Hormonal
keywords: Emotion; Empathy; Estrogen; Oral contraceptives