Fig. 3: Dynamical complexity of menstrual cycle phases.

a Whole-brain node-metastability. The pre-ovulatory phase showed higher node-metastability values across the whole-brain network than the early follicular and mid-luteal phases. P-values are based on Monte-Carlo permutation tests and were FDR corrected, *** represents p < 0.001. The box in the boxplot indicates the upper and lower quartiles and the line inside the box indicates the median. b Hierarchy. The red area marks the ten regions showing the highest node-metastability values in each phase. For the early follicular phase, brain areas showing the highest values were primarily located in the salience, DMN, dorsal attention, visual, and somatomotor networks. For the pre-ovulatory phase, the brain areas belonged to the DMN, limbic, subcortical, dorsal attention and control networks. During the mid-luteal phase, they were located in the subcortical, DMN, dorsal attention and control networks. c Renders brains represent the node-metastability values of the 116 areas for each menstrual cycle phase. The dynamical complexity of the pre-ovulatory phase across the whole-brain networks is clearly more complex than the dynamical complexity of the other two phases.