Effect of the Menstrual Cycle on Electroencephalogram Alpha and Beta Bands During Motor Imagery and Action Observation

Rafaela Faustino Lacerda de Souza; Thatiane Maria Almeida Silveira Mendes; Luana Adalice Borges de Araujo Lima; Daniel Soares Brandão; Diego Andrés Laplagne; Maria Bernardete Cordeiro de Sousa

doi:10.3389/fnhum.2022.878887

Effect of the Menstrual Cycle on Electroencephalogram Alpha and Beta Bands During Motor Imagery and Action Observation

Front Hum Neurosci. 2022 May 4:16:878887. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.878887. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Rafaela Faustino Lacerda de Souza¹, Thatiane Maria Almeida Silveira Mendes¹, Luana Adalice Borges de Araujo Lima¹, Daniel Soares Brandão², Diego Andrés Laplagne³, Maria Bernardete Cordeiro de Sousa^{1

4}

Affiliations

¹ Behavioral Endocrinology Laboratory, Brain Institute, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, Brazil.
² Electroencephalography Laboratory, Brain Institute, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, Brazil.
³ Behavioral Neurophysiology, Brain Institute, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, Brazil.
⁴ Graduate Program in Psychobiology, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil.

Abstract

Female sex steroids (FSS) can affect the motor system, modulating motor cortex excitability as well as performance in dexterity and coordination tasks. However, it has not yet been explored whether FSS affects the cognitive components of motor behavior. Mu is a sensorimotor rhythm observed by electroencephalography (EEG) in alpha (8-12 Hz) and beta (15-30 Hz) frequency bands in practices such as motor imagery (MI) and action observation (AO). This rhythm represents a window for studying the activity of neural circuits involved in motor cognition. Herein we investigated whether the alpha-mu and beta-mu power in the sensorimotor region (C3 and C4, hypothesis-driven approach) and the alpha and beta power over frontal, parietal, and occipital regions (data-driven approach) are modulated differently in the menstrual, follicular, and luteal phases of menstrual cycles in right-handed dominant women. To do so, these women underwent MI and AO in the three menstrual cycle phases. The spectral activity of the cortical regions for the alpha and beta bands were compared between phases of the menstrual cycle and a correlation analysis was also performed in relation to estrogen and progesterone levels. For the hypothesis-based approach, beta-mu event-related desynchronization (ERD) was significantly stronger in the C3 channel in the follicular phase than in the menstrual and luteal phases. For the data-driven approach, beta ERD during MI was higher in the follicular phase than in the menstrual and luteal phases in the frontal region. These findings suggest the effect of FSS on executive movement control. No effect of menstrual cycle phases was observed in cortical areas investigated during OA, but alpha and beta bands correlated positively with the follicular phase plasma estradiol level. Thus, the attenuation of alpha and beta bands referring to mirror neuron activities appears to be associated with inhibition of cortical activity when estradiol levels are lower, improving cognitive processing of motor action.

Keywords: EEG; action observation; alpha-mu; beta-mu; menstrual cycle; motor imagery.