ERP evidence of heightened attentional response to visual stimuli in migraine headache disorders

Abstract

New findings from migraine studies have indicated that this common headache disorder is associated with anomalies in attentional processing. In tandem with the previous explorations, this study will provide evidence to show that visual attention is impacted by migraine headache disorders. 43 individuals were initially recruited in the migraine group and 33 people with non-migraine headache disorders were in the control group. The event-related potentials (ERP) of the participants were calculated using data from a visual oddball paradigm task. By analyzing the N200 and P300 ERP components, migraineurs, as compared to controls, had an exaggerated oddball response showing increased amplitude in N200 and P300 difference scores for the oddball vs. standard, while the latencies of the two components remained the same in the migraine and control groups. We then looked at two classifications of migraine with and without aura compared to non-migraine controls. One-Way ANOVA analysis of the two migraine groups and the non-migraine control group showed that the different level of N200 and P300 amplitude mean scores was greater between migraineurs without aura and the control group while these components’ latency remained the same relatively in the three groups. Our results give more neurophysiological support that people with migraine headaches have altered processing of visual attention.