Idiosyncrasy and generalizability of contraceptive- and hormone-related functional connectomes across the menstrual cycle

Neuroendocrinology has received little attention in human neuroscience research, resulting in a dearth of knowledge surrounding potent and dynamic modulators of cognition and behavior, as well as brain structure and function. This work addresses one such phenomenon by studying functional connectomics related to ovarian hormone fluctuations throughout the adult menstrual cycle. To do so, we used fMRI and hormone assessments from two dense, longitudinal datasets to assess variations in functional connectivity with respect to endogenous and exogenous endocrine factors throughout the menstrual cycle. First, we replicated prior findings that common, group-level, and individual-specific factors have similar relative contributions to functional brain network organization. Second, we found widespread connectivity related to hormonal contraceptive (HC) use, in addition to sparser estradiol- and progesterone-related connectivity. Differential generalizability of these connectivity patterns suggests progestin-specific impacts on functional brain organization in HC users. These results provide novel insight into within-individual changes in brain organization across the menstrual cycle and the extent to which these changes are shared between individuals, illuminating understudied phenomena in reproductive health and important information for all neuroimaging studies that include participants who menstruate.