Oral contraceptives and cognition: A role for ethinyl estradiol |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Psychology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA;2. Department of Human Development and Family Studies, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA;3. Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario N6A 5C2, Canada;4. Department of Pediatrics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA;1. Memory Studies Laboratory, Physiology Department, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, Brazil;2. Laboratory of Behavioral Neuroscience, Pharmacology Department, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil;3. Laboratory of Neuroscience and Bioprospecting of Natural Products, Biosciences Department, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Santos, Brazil;4. Laboratory of Behavioral Genetics, Cell Biology, Embryology and Genetics Department, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil;1. Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, University of California—Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697, USA;2. Gail and Gerard Oppenheimer Family Center for the Neurobiology of Stress, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California—Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA |
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| Abstract: | This article is part of a Special Issue "Estradiol and cognition".Estrogens have been seen to play a role in human cognitive abilities, but questions remain about the cognitive impact of ethinyl estradiol, which is contained in many oral contraceptives (OCs). Inconsistencies in past studies likely reflect small samples and heterogeneous groups of OC users. The aims of the present work were to examine OC effects on sex-typed spatial and verbal abilities by (a) comparing mental rotations and expressional fluency in normally-cycling (NC) women and men to OC users considered as a heterogeneous group and then to homogeneous groups of OC users created by classifying pills according to their active constituents, and (b) determining the relation between synthetic hormone doses in OCs and mental rotations and expressional fluency. Participants were 136 men, 93 NC women, and 148 OC users, including homogeneous monophasic (n = 55) and triphasic (n = 43) OC groups, aged 18 to 30 years. Significant effects of OC use were seen in homogeneous group comparisons but not when OC users were considered as a heterogeneous group. On mental rotations, men outperformed women, and monophasic OC users outperformed NC women. The latter difference may be attributable to estradiol, as ethinyl estradiol was inversely related to spatial ability among OC users and was lower in monophasic than in triphasic users. On expressional fluency, NC women and monophasic OC users outperformed men, and monophasic users outperformed triphasic users. Thus, results show the importance of ethinyl estradiol and of considering pill constituents when studying the cognitive effects of OCs. |
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