New Delhi: In a crucial analysis that positions polycystic ovarian syndrome or PCOS as a cognitive disorder, apart from a physical one, researchers have found that it has a dramatic impact on women’s focussed as well as divided attention.
The researchers, associated with the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, found that the condition decreased the speed of response in affected women by about 56 percent and accuracy by about 10 percent.
The findings, ‘The impact of polycystic ovary syndrome on attention: an empirical investigation’, were published in February in the journal BioPsychosocial Medicine, IIT Bombay said in a statement Monday.
PCOS is a hormonal disorder that affects women of reproductive age and is associated with a range of symptoms when the ovaries produce an excess of androgens, or male sex hormones, typically found in smaller amounts in women.
The prevalence of PCOS, which is mainly marked by symptoms such as disrupted menstrual cycle, excess body hair and sterility, is estimated to be over 11 percent in Indian women.
As part of the study, IIT Bombay recruited two groups of participants, 101 women with PCOS and 72 healthy women, who were asked to carry out the attention tasks and their hormonal levels were assessed before the study.
The task-based tests showed that women with PCOS are slower to react and more easily distracted than their healthy counterparts.
Women with PCOS showed over a 50 percent slower response and made about 10 percent more errors than the healthy ones in the focused attention test. Similarly, they performed about 20 percent slowly, with 3 percent extra errors in the divided attention task.
Attention, according to researchers, is the precursor for all vital cognitive processing—receiving, understanding, and making sense of the information. It is also a complex process that involves focusing on relevant information and filtering out irrelevant stimuli (focused attention).
Divided attention, on the other hand, helps us handle and respond to multiple tasks simultaneously
Among the two types of attention, PCOS women performed poorer in focused attention.
“Despite the variability in PCOS symptoms and their severity, the impairments in the core cognitive abilities of attention and processing speed seem to be prevalent across women,” said Azizuddin Khan, professor of psychophysiology who led the research.
While earlier research underlines that Indian women with PCOS show an increased level of anxiety and depression, its effect on attention and cognitive ability has been less explored.
Effect on neurons
The researchers have underlined that 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, on the other hand, makes divided attention more challenging.
The study 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, they noted.
The findings emphasise the need to understand PCOS as a complex medical condition that not only affects physical but also cognitive health, said Khan. A comprehensive intervention that addresses diverse aspects, including supportive care, will help the well-being of women with PCOS, he added.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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