Electrophysiological and Behavioral Indices of the Role of Estrogens on Memory Processes for Emotional Faces in Healthy Young Women.

It is well known that estrogens influence cognitive activities, such as memory, and emotional states. The objective of the present study was to investigate the role of estrogens in the short-term memory processing of basic emotional face expressions, by means of event-related potentials (ERPs) and a recognition memory (RM) behavioral task. Healthy young women were divided into a periovulatory (PO) group, characterized by high levels of estrogens and low levels of progesterone, and an early follicular (EF) group, characterized by low levels of both estrogens and progesterone.