IMAGES OF PMS

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IMAGES OF PMS
Is It Real? You Bet!


Over the past years we have scanned many women with PMS just before the onset period, during the worst time of their cycle, and then again a week after the onset of their period, during the best time. Most often when PMS is present we see dramatic differences between the scans. When a woman feels good, her deep limbic system is calm and cool and she has good activity in her temporal lobes and prefrontal cortex. Right before her period when she feels the worst her deep limbic system is often overactive and she has poor activity in her temporal lobes and prefrontal cortex!

I have seen two PMS patterns, clinically and on SPECT, that respond to different treatments. One pattern is focal increased deep limbic activity often accompanied by temporal lobe hypoperfusion that correlates with cyclic mood changes. When the limbic system is more active on the left side it is often associated with anger, irritability and expressed negative emotion. When it is more active on the right side it is often associated with sadness, emotional withdrawal, anxiety and repressed negative emotion. Left-sided abnormalities are more a problem for other people (outwardly directed anger and irritability), while right-sided overactivity is more an internal problem. Focal deep limbic and temporal lobe findings, worse during the premenstrual period, often respond best to lithium or anticonvulsant medications, such as Depakote, Neurontin, Lamictal or Tegretol. These medications tend to even out moods, calm inner tension, decrease irritability and help people feel more comfortable in their own skin.

The second PMS pattern that I have noted is increased deep limbic activity in conjunction with increased cingulate gyrus activity. The cingulate, as we will see, is the part of the brain associated with shifting attention. Women with this pattern often complain of increased sadness, worrying, repetitive negative thoughts and verbalizations (nagging) and cognitive inflexibility. This pattern usually responds much better to medications which enhance serotonin availability in the brain, such as Zoloft, Paxil or Prozac. Here are several examples.
Examples>


-- Cherri (jessam6@home.com), September 01, 2001

Answers

Is it just me, or does that picture look like it is 3-D

-- Cherri (jessam6@home.com), September 01, 2001.

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