# Menstrual-phase-dependent differences in response to chronic variable sleep loss

> **NIH NIH R01** · BRIGHAM AND WOMEN'S HOSPITAL · 2024 · $874,145

## Abstract

Summary
It is well known that sleep loss is associated with significant short- and long-term health consequences, but to
date the impact of sex differences in response to sleep loss are poorly understood. We and others have shown
that women have greater neurobehavioral performance impairment than men when exposed to one night of
acute sleep loss. Furthermore, when this effect is examined separately by menstrual cycle phase, women in the
follicular phase exhibit greater impairment compared to both men and women during the luteal phase, suggesting
a possible endocrine mechanism. Indeed, we have shown that these differences in performance may be driven
by sex-steroid-mediated changes in core body temperature (CBT), specifically involving the ratio of progesterone
(P4) to estradiol (E2) between the follicular and luteal phases. These findings have important implications for
understanding the interactions of sleep loss and female sex hormones on neurobehavioral performance and
other health consequences. An important open question, however, is how these menstrual-phase-dependent
differences impact performance under more realistic patterns of chronic sleep loss. Millions of women routinely
obtain less than the recommended 7-9 hours of sleep per night during the week and attempt to catch up on sleep
on the weekend. In men, we have shown that any apparent improvement during such recovery sleep is transient,
and that subsequent sleep loss results in more accelerated deterioration in performance. It is unknown how this
variable pattern of chronic sleep loss and recovery sleep impacts performance in women during the follicular and
luteal phases of the menstrual cycle. The proposed work will fill this important gap in knowledge. In our proposed
11-day inpatient study, healthy premenopausal women will be randomized to either chronic variable sleep
deficiency (with a repeated pattern of two nights of 3 hours time-in-bed followed by one night of 10 hours time-
in-bed, equivalent to our prior study in mean) or a sleep satiation control (10 hours time-in-bed throughout) during
either the follicular or luteal phase of their menstrual cycle. This protocol will allow us to quantify both the impact
of chronic variable sleep deficiency on neurobehavioral performance in women and differences in the response
to chronic variable sleep loss across the menstrual cycle. We will also investigate the role of CBT, P4, and E2 in
mediating these responses. As an exploratory analysis, we will also evaluate the impact of chronic variable sleep
loss on E2 and P4 levels to investigate the effect of insufficient sleep on circulating levels of female sex hormones
across the menstrual cycle.
There is immediate

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10823341
- **Project number:** 5R01HL162102-03
- **Recipient organization:** BRIGHAM AND WOMEN'S HOSPITAL
- **Principal Investigator:** Shadab A Rahman
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $874,145
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2022-04-01 → 2026-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10823341

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10823341, Menstrual-phase-dependent differences in response to chronic variable sleep loss (5R01HL162102-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10823341. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*