FAMILIAL HEMIPLEGIC MIGRAINE LOCUS ON 19P13 IS INVOLVED IN THE COMMONFORMS OF MIGRAINE WITH AND WITHOUT AURA

Migraine is a common neurological disease of two main types: migraine with aura and migraine without aura. Familial clustering suggests that genetic factors are involved in the etiology of migraine. Recently, a gene for familial hemiplegic migraine, a rare autosomal dominant subt ype of migraine with aura, was mapped to chromosome 19p13. We tested t he involvement of this chromosomal region in 28 unrelated families wit h the common forms of migraine with and without aura, by following the transmission of the highly informative marker D19S394. Sib-pair analy sis showed that affected sibs shared the same marker allele more frequ ently than expected by chance. Our findings thus also suggest the invo lvement of a gene on 19p13 in the etiology of the common forms of migr aine.