BACKGROUND Right to left shunting, usually caused by a patent foramen ovale (PFO), is associated with migraine and visual aura. It is unknown if patients who present with visual aura without headache behave similarly to those experiencing typical migraine headache with aura. The purpose of this study was to assess the prevalence of right to left shunting in patients who present with migraine au...

OBJECTIVE To describe the course of migraine without aura and migraine with aura during pregnancy and factors that could influence its course, among migraine sufferers before pregnancy. METHOD A cross sectional study undertaken at the IMIP, Brazil. Out of 686 consecutively assisted women, at the first postnatal week, 266 were identified as migraine sufferers before pregnancy. RESULTS There ...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Silent ischemic brain lesions frequently occur in migraine with aura and are most often located in cerebellar border zones. This may imply an impairment of cerebellar blood flow autoregulation. This study investigated the characteristics of interictal cerebellar autoregulation in migraine with and without aura. METHODS Thirty-four patients (n=17, migraine without aura; ...

The study presented here is the first detailed nosographic analysis of migraine aura, diagnosed using the criteria of the International Headache Society, in a sufficiently large sample for statistical analysis. Of 4,000 people, 163 had migraine with aura. Sixty-two had attacks of migraine aura with headache as well as migraine aura without headache, and seven had exclusively migraine aura witho...

Migraine is a common clinical disorder, quite disabling and affecting the quality of life in majority of patients. The visual aura is the commonest among all types of aura. Various types of migraine aura described in the literature are photopsia, fortification spectra, scotoma, visual distortion, haemianopia and metamorphsia. The epileptic visual aura differs from aura associated with migraine ...

OBJECTIVE To provide insight into the wide spectrum of migraine during childhood to establish practical and comprehensive treatment strategies. BACKGROUND Although recent studies have confirmed the effect of anti-migraine agents in childhood headaches fulfilling the criteria of migraine without aura, there have been no studies regarding the efficacy of these drugs in childhood migraine withou...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Our aim in this study was to compare headache-free and spontaneous migraine measurements of blood flow velocity and the pulsatility index in the anterior cerebral artery, middle cerebral artery, and posterior cerebral artery. METHODS Thirty-one patients (nine having experienced migraine with aura and 22 migraine without aura) were studied in headache-free periods and du...

This study examined the efficacy of lamotrigine in the prevention of migraine aura. Fifty nine patients suffering from migraine with aura received lamotrigine in a controlled three year prospective open study. Treatment response was defined as a reduction of aura frequency each month by at least 50%. Primary endpoint was reached by three quarters of the patients. Lamotrigine significantly reduc...

In this issue of Cephalalgia, Dr Jakob Moller Hansen and his colleagues report a series of very interesting experiments in which they successfully induced migraine-like attacks in patients with migraine with aura via infusion of calcitonin gene related peptide (CGRP). This work echoes similar experiments carried out by the Copenhagen group using the nitric oxide donor, glycerol trinitrate (GTN)...

Visual disturbances in migraineurs, such as visual aura, are typically episodic, that is, associated with the headache attack, and overlaid by head pain and other symptoms that impact the patient. In some patients, however, visual symptoms are dominant due to frequency (migraine aura status), duration (persistent migraine aura and other persistent positive visual phenomena), or complexity (visu...