Intraindividual and interindividual variations in psychomotor task performance in spontaneously menstruating women

Objectives: To examine the variability in psychomotortask performance in women in reference to the mens trualcycle.Methods: One hundred and eighty young women with spontaneous regular menstrual period of 30 days durationand 20 young men were assessed in the Department of Pharmacology, College of Medicine, Al-MustansiriyaUniversity, Baghdad, Iraq during 2003.Results: Women had significantly lower recognition as well as motor reaction time than men with wide inter and intraindividual variations. Women also had a lower critical flicker fusion frequency threshold than men with more variation. The changes in psychomotor performance are not specific for a certain phase of the menstrual cycle.Conclusions: Spontaneously menstruating young womenare not good participants for psychomotor performance studies because of wide intra- and inter individual variations.