Women's cognitive abilities remain stable across menstrual cycle

A new meta-analysis published in PLOS One finds no robust evidence that women’s cognitive abilities vary across different phases of the menstrual cycle.

Throughout history, popular narratives have often portrayed menstruation as a condition that impairs thinking and decision-making. This perception has made its way into public discourse, ranging from newspaper editorials to political commentary. Meanwhile, some brain imaging studies and reports of subjective experiences have suggested possible cognitive shifts throughout the cycle, contributing to a conflicting scientific narrative.

To address this question, Daisung Jang and colleagues conducted a comprehensive meta-analysis with the goal of resolving inconsistent findings.

The authors conducted a broad search of psychological and biomedical databases (e.g., PsycInfo, PubMed) for research on menstrual cycle effects on cognitive performance, retrieving 102 articles that met their inclusion criteria. The final meta-analysis included 3,943 participants and 730 comparisons. All included studies assessed women’s cognitive performance across at least two clearly defined phases of the menstrual cycle.

Cognitive domains evaluated included attention, creativity, executive functioning, intelligence, memory, motor function, spatial ability, and verbal ability, with tasks requiring objectively correct answers. Both speed and accuracy measures were analyzed separately where data permitted.

Menstrual cycle phases were standardized across studies using a five-phase model: menstrual, follicular, periovulatory, luteal, and premenstrual. When needed, phase definitions from original studies were reclassified to fit this model. The researchers applied Hedges’ g to estimate effect sizes and corrected for methodological inconsistencies, including test-retest reliability. Additional robustness checks were performed by focusing on studies with hormone-confirmed cycle phases and those with 80% phase definition overlap. Studies of oral contraceptive users were also analyzed separately to serve as a comparison group.

Across the entire dataset, no significant or consistent differences were found in attention, creativity, executive function, intelligence, or motor performance across the menstrual cycle. Even in domains where prior findings hinted at possible changes—such as memory, spatial ability, and verbal performance—any observed effects were small, inconsistent, and not robust to correction for multiple comparisons or to analyses restricted to high-quality studies.

For example, an initial advantage in spatial accuracy during ovulation relative to the follicular phase was found in the full sample, but this effect disappeared in hormone-confirmed studies.

Speed and accuracy, which were analyzed separately, also showed no reliable trends across cycle phases. While individual studies occasionally reported differences, these did not replicate consistently across high-quality or large-sample studies. Heterogeneity in results was often traced back to poor methodological practices, such as self-reported cycle tracking or loosely defined phase boundaries.

Publication bias was also ruled out, suggesting that the absence of findings was not due to selective reporting.

A limitation is that many studies had small sample sizes and relied on self-reported menstrual tracking rather than hormonal assays. Although robustness checks excluded these studies, the field would benefit from more large-scale, rigorously controlled research.

This meta-analysis provides evidence that women’s cognitive abilities remain stable throughout the menstrual cycle, helping to dispel long-standing myths about hormonal effects on female cognition.

The study, “Menstrual cycle effects on cognitive performance: A meta-analysis,” was authored by Daisung Jang, Jack Zhang, and Hillary Anger Elfenbein.