Abstract
Migraine attacks can cause significant discomfort and reduced functioning for days at a time, including the pre-ictal and post-ictal periods. During the inter-ictsal period, however, migraineurs seem to function normally. It is puzzling, therefore, that event-related potentials of migraine patients often differ in the asymptomatic and inter-ictal period. Part of the electrophysiological dynamics demonstrated in the migraine cycle are attention related. In this pilot study we evaluated an easy-to-use new marker, the Brain Engagement Index (BEI), for attention monitoring during the migraine cycle. We sampled 12 migraine patients for 20 days within one calendar month. Each session consisted of subjects’ reports of stress level and migraine-related symptoms, and a 5 min EEG recording, with a 2-electrode EEG device, during an auditory oddball task. The first minute of the EEG sample was analyzed. Repetitive samples were also obtained from 10 healthy controls. The brain engagement index increased significantly during the pre-ictal (p ≈ 0.001) and the ictal (p ≈ 0.020) periods compared with the inter-ictal period. No difference was observed between the pre-ictal and ictal periods. Control subjects demonstrated intermediate Brain Engagement Index values, that is, higher than inter-ictal, yet lower than pre-ictal. Our preliminary results demonstrate the potential advantage of the use of a simple EEG system for improved prediction of migraine attacks. Further study is required to evaluate the efficacy of the Brain Engagement Index in monitoring the migraine cycle and the possible effects of interventions.
Highlights
Migraine is a prevalent disease, affecting more than 15% of females and more than 5% of males [1].Migraine attacks may cause significant discomfort and reduced functioning for days, including the pre-ictal and post-ictal periods [2]
In this work we evaluated the applicability of following the dynamics of this simple marker during the migraine cycle
In a detailed theoretical work [31], we suggested that event-related potentials (ERPs) changes reported in the literature during the migraine cycle may originate from changes in attention level
Summary
Migraine attacks may cause significant discomfort and reduced functioning for days, including the pre-ictal and post-ictal periods [2]. During inter-ictal periods, migraineurs seem to function normally. It is puzzling that synchronized cortical responses to external stimuli or event-related potentials (ERPs) of migraine patients often differ in the asymptomatic, inter-ictal phase [3]. A frequently reported finding for the differentiation in inter-ictal migraine seems to be reduced habituation. ERP habituation is the degree of reduction in response to stimuli between the initial and subsequently sampled blocks. Such habituation is observed in control patients, but is found to be Sensors 2018, 18, 3918; doi:10.3390/s18113918 www.mdpi.com/journal/sensors
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