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Background: Food intake fluctuates throughout the menstrual cycle; it is greater during the early follicular and luteal phases than in the late follicular (periovulatory) phase. Ovarian steroids can influence brain areas that process food-related information, but the specific contribution of individual hormones and the importance of the prandial state remain unknown.

Objective: The objective was to examine whether brain activation during food visualization is affected by changes in estradiol concentration in the fasted and fed conditions.

Design: Nine eumenorrheic, lean young women [mean (±SD) age: 26.2 ± 3.2 y; body mass index (in kg/m²): 22.4 ± 1.2] completed 2 visits, one in the early (low estradiol) and one in the late (high estradiol) follicular phase of their menstrual cycle. At each visit, subjects underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while they viewed food and nonfood images, before and after a …