Migraine and Visual Cortex Excitability

We’ve known for a long time that people with migraine tend to respond differently to visual stimuli. But we’re not the only group.

As a matter of fact, Dr. Daniele Piscitelli (Department of Kinesiology, University of Connecticut) didn’t start out studying migraine, but studying stroke. But he noted that there was some overlap with migraine research.

So he started studying migraine and cortex excitability – that is, how the brain responds to stimulation. He studied motor excitability – related, of course, to body movement, and visual excitability, related to what we see. The findings were published in the journal Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience.

Without getting into the details (which you can read in the actual study, Effects of Pattern-Reversal Visual Stimulation on Brain Activity in Migraineurs and General Population), the researchers didn’t find any difference in motor cortex excitability between the control group and the migraine group. However, the migraine brain did tend to have more visual cortex excitability.

This is all very technical, of course, but it does confirm some things. For one, the researchers found that this was the case not only with migraine but with other types of headaches. We’ve known for a long time that tension-type headaches and migraine aren’t so different after all, and may even have a common basis. This confirms the connection again.

Another thing we’ve known (and not completely understood) is that there’s a link between epilepsy and migraine. Some drugs common to both can reduce visual cortex hyperexcitability. So if your doctor recommends an anticonvulsant drug for your headaches, they’re on solid scientific ground (although of course every person is different when it comes to which medication, if any, they should take).

This is only another study in a long line that are helping us understand how migraine works and how it’s related to other conditions.

To read more, check out the press release from the University of Connecticut: Migraine sufferers’ brains respond differently to visual stimulation