Migraine and Memory: Is this how Migraine affects you?

On the way home, I need to remember to buy blueberries.

And yet, in the evening when I’m ready for dessert, I find myself blueberryless. I forgot.

This type of memory is called “prospective memory”. It’s the ability to remember to do something in the future. As we all know, it doesn’t always work perfectly!

Is it possible that migraine makes things worse?

Researchers have noticed that some frontal areas of the brain can be impaired by migraine attacks – areas that are also related to this type of memory. So, they studied the relationship between the two.

175 people were recruited for the study, 91 with migraine. Now, you can guess what the results were, since this article wouldn’t be here if the researchers hadn’t noticed anything. But it’s a little more interesting than that.

Often these studies divide patients who experience migraine with aura, and those who don’t experience aura.

In this case, the memory impairment was in the group without aura. Yes, patients with migraine (without aura) did have more trouble remembering to do things in the future than those with aura or healthy individuals (see study abstract here).

Now here’s another interesting note. One type of prospective memory was impaired more than another type.

Event-based prospective memory refers to remembering something based on environmental cues. I drive by the store, I remember that I need to buy blueberries.

Time-based prospective memory is, of course, based on time. 4pm comes around, and I remember that I need to buy blueberries.

The migraine patients had the most problems, for some reason, with time-based memory.

So, if you want to buy blueberries, use visual cues. Better yet, just write yourself a note.

For a short article about prospective memory and how to avoid memory fails, see When We Forget to Remember – Failures in Prospective Memory Range From Annoying to Lethal. And here’s a quick primer on migraine and memory loss.

(By the way, you should actually buy blueberries. They’re excellent for migraine patients. They might even improve your memory.)