ictal and interictal eeg abnormalities in 100 migraineurs with and without aura

there are several conflicting reports about the eeg of the migraineurs. in this study we report the ictal and interictal eegs of 100 migraineurs, in comparison with control group. the range age for patient and control groups were 9-48 (mean: 26 ± 1.8) and 10-46 (mean: 23 ± 2.1) years respectively. 32% of the patients were less than 14 years old and the remaining 68% were more than 14 years. in the patient group, 68% of cases had migraine without aura and 32% suffered from migraine with aura. hemiplegic and basilar migraines were observed in one and two of our patients respectively. gender and age had no effect on the type of migraine. family history for first degree relatives was found in 64% of patients, without being influenced by gender or type of migraine. male to female ratio was 1/1.6 (38/62). abnormal eeg was found to be much more frequent in migraineurs than the control group (47% vs. 7%). children had an overall somewhat more abnormal eegs, compared with adult group (53% vs. 44% or 17/32 vs. 30/68), though slow discharges were detected more in adult group. the most common abnormality was slow high voltage waves, which was observed in 33/47 (70%) of abnormal recordings. the less common findings, in decreasing order of frequency were: focal (slow, sharps or mixed) discharges in 14/47 (29%), epileptiform (alone or associated with slow waves) in 4/47 (8.5%), diffuse beta and frontal intermittent delta, activity each being in 1/47 (2.1%) of abnormal recordings.