Is Your Vision Overly “Sensitive” – even when you don’t have a headache?

If you feel like you are still overly sensitive to visual stimulation even when you’re not in the middle of a migraine attack – you’re not alone. And a new study has confirmed this once again.

There is still probably a common misconception that people with migraine simply have headaches once in a while – bad ones, yes. But that means a bad day, and then it’s all over.

But people with migraine know better. Not only is a migraine attack much more than just a headache, it also often starts before the headache starts, and ends long after. In fact, there are many ways in which migraine affects all of life.

Researchers are continually discovering ways in which the biology of migraine patients is simply different – even in between attacks. (See for example After a Migraine: Vision Problems and Stroke Risk?) A study published this year in NeuroImage: Clinical focuses on sensitivity to visual stimuli.

This particular trial used both objective tests such as EEGs as well as subjective questions to measure “visual symptoms” between migraine patients and controls. One key element used was “gratings” – symmetrical lines – which tend to be unpleasant to look at (and so apologies for the image above, but it illustrates the point).

We know that migraine patients are very much focused on visual discomfort during and even between attacks. Special glasses, avoiding light, using “dark mode”, and even issues with driving past a series of symmetrical posts with the sun shining through them – these are all well known in the migraine community.

This trial confirmed that migraine patients are unusually “sensitive” to visual stimuli. We feel more discomfort than the average person.

This discomfort is similar to what non-migraine patients feel if they are also extra sensitive, though they seem to be generally less-sensitive.

So there is an underlying pattern here, which researchers believe is centred on the visual cortex (located at the back middle section of your brain). The study’s lead author summarized this way:

Most migraineurs also report experiencing abnormal visual sensations in their everyday life, for example, elementary hallucinations, visual discomforts and extra light sensitivity. We believe this hints at a link between migraine experiences and abnormalities in the visual cortex. Our results provide the first evidence for this theory, by discovering a specific brain response pattern among migraineurs.

Dr. Terence Chun Yuen Fong

The next step will be to measure changes before, during, and after a migraine attack. A better understanding of visual sensitivity not only helps us understand migraine better, it may help us to be able to better predict and treat specific attacks.

Meanwhile, don’t brush off that “discomfort” you may be feeling between attacks. It might just be a part of the bigger picture of migraine itself.

Full study available here: Differences in early and late pattern-onset visual-evoked potentials between self- reported migraineurs and controls via The brain of migraine sufferers is hyper-excitable