MENSTRUAL PHASE-INDEPENDENT RETRIEVAL DEFICIT IN WOMEN WITH PMS

Memory and attention were evaluated in 19 women with prospectively doc umented premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and 17 women without PMS. Testing occurred during the late luteal and follicular phases of the menstrual cycle. Estrogen, progesterone, and FSH levels were obtained on testin g days for 23 of the women, while mood measures were obtained for all of the women. Repeated measures analysis of variance yielded significa nt group differences on recall measures, with no differences noted on recognition indices. No significant session or interaction effects wer e observed This pattern of results suggests impaired retrieval of lear ned information coincident with intact encoding. No significant effect s were noted for any of the nonverbal memory, attention, or other neur ocognitive variables. The obtained data support previous findings of a mild, phase-independent memory impairment in women with PMS and also contribute to a better understanding of the component memory processes involved.