An IIT Bombay study reveals that women with PCOS show significant cognitive challenges, especially in attention and reaction times. The hormonal imbalances and insulin resistance associated with PCOS are linked to decreased alertness and longer response durations. Women with PCOS also demonstrate higher error rates in focused and divided attention tasks. Such findings emphasize the impact of PCOS on daily cognitive functions, making tasks like driving or remembering numbers more difficult.
May 28, 2025
Women with PCOS likely to have attention, cognitive issues: Study
"These
minute delays reveal significant impairments in attention, which may impact our
real-life functioning." - Prof. Khan
Polycystic
Ovary Syndrome or PCOS, a common endocrine disorder in women, can affect
attention and other cognitive abilities, according to a study by researchers at
the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay on Monday.
Key
Points
1 PCOS affects attention with increased errors and
slower responses
2 Hormonal imbalance impacts alertness and reaction
times
3 Insulin resistance links to cognitive decline
Women
with PCOS often suffer from irregular or absent periods, polycystic ovaries,
and increased levels of male hormone (androgen).
While
previous research showed an increased level of anxiety and depression among
women with PCOS, the new study focussed on attention -- the precursor for all
vital cognitive processing such as receiving, understanding, and making sense
of the information.
Maitreyi
Redkar and Prof Azizuddin Khan from the Psychophysiology Laboratory, Department
of Humanities and Social Sciences at the IIT Bombay assessed two groups of
participants -- 101 women with PCOS and 72 healthy women.
The
team mapped their hormonal levels before the study and subjected them to
attention tasks. They found that PCOS are slower to react and more easily
distracted than their healthy counterparts.
Women
with PCOS showed over a 50 per cent slower response and made about 10 per cent
more errors than the healthy ones in the focused attention test.
Similarly,
PCOS women performed about 20 per cent slowly, with 3 per cent extra errors in
the divided attention task, the researchers said.
"The
cognitive experiments are specifically designed to capture the subtle
millisecond-level differences in how individuals respond to critical stimuli.
These minute delays reveal significant impairments in attention, which may
impact our real-life functioning," said Prof. Khan, who led the study.
"In
the specific context of focused attention, it is not just about concentrating
on the task at hand to respond at the right time, but also inhibiting
irrelevant distractors," he added.
The
researchers explained that the hormonal imbalance associated with PCOS could
lead to decreased alertness and longer reaction times. Along with elevated
androgen levels, the participants with PCOS had insulin resistance that is
linked to attention.
Insulin
resistance causes poor glucose metabolism and affects brain cell (neuron)
activity, leading to poor performance in focused attention tasks.
Mental
fatigue linked to PCOS, such as anxiety and frustration, makes divided
attention tasks more challenging.
The
finding highlights that decreased accuracy in divided attention tasks may
influence working memory, which hinders holding the information temporarily.
This makes daily activities such as keeping track of directions while driving
or remembering a phone number to dial more challenging, the researchers said.
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