A PROSPECTIVE-STUDY OF JUVENILE MIGRAINE WITH AURA

We studied a group of young migraine with aura patients with whom it w as possible to reconstruct the course and the characteristics of the d isturbances preceding or accompanying the onset of the headache. The 4 7 subjects, 31 female and 16 male, were diagnosed (IHS classification) as Migraine with typical aura (n=40), Familial hemiplegic migraine (n =1), Basilar migraine (n=6), and Migraine with prolonged aura (n=5). V isual (43 cases) and sensory disturbances (20 cases) were the most com monly described symptoms; a motor deficit was reported in 10 out of 47 cases. Other disturbances such as vertigo attacks, aphasia, spatial d isorientation, loss of consciousness or a decreased level of conscious ness with the appearance of automatic movements, were much rarer. In o ur cases the visual disturbances were not isolated but were accompanie d by other symptoms in 29 cases, and in 5 of the 18 cases in which the re were only visual symptoms, the disturbances presented in succession ; a ''march'' of the sensory and motor disturbance was found in 66% an d 68% of cases, respectively. The data from our cases in which the dis turbance seems most frequently to originate in the occipital areas (vi sual disorders) and then to spread to the temporo-parietal regions in part confirms that there is a posterior to anterior dynamic in the cer ebral areas involved.