Transient Localized Wave Patterns and Their Application to Migraine

Transient dynamics is pervasive in the human brain and poses challenging problems both in mathematical tractability and clinical observability. We investigate statistical properties of transient cortical wave patterns with characteristic forms (shape, size, duration) in a canonical reaction-diffusion model with mean field inhibition. The patterns are formed by ghost behavior near a saddle-node bifurcation in which a stable traveling wave (node) collides with its critical nucleation mass (saddle). Similar patterns have been observed with fMRI in migraine. Our results support the controversial idea that waves of cortical spreading depression (SD) have a causal relationship with the headache phase in migraine and, therefore, occur not only in migraine with aura (MA), but also in migraine without aura (MO), i.e., in the two major migraine subtypes. We suggest a congruence between the prevalence of MO and MA with the statistical properties of the traveling waves' forms according to which two predictions follow: (i) the activation of nociceptive mechanisms relevant for headache is dependent upon a sufficiently large instantaneous affected cortical area; and (ii) the incidence of MA is reflected in the distance to the saddle-node bifurcation. We also observed that the maximal instantaneous affected cortical area is anticorrelated to both SD duration and total affected cortical area, which can explain why the headache is less severe in MA than in MO. Furthermore, the contested notion of MO attacks with silent aura is resolved. We briefly discuss model-based control and means by which neuromodulation techniques may affect pathways of pain formation.