COGNITIVE PROCESSING IN MIGRAINE - A FAILURE TO FIND FACILITATION IN PATIENTS WITH AURA

Recent interest in cognitive processing in migraine has been based on the assumption that cortical hyperexcitability in migraine with aura m ay manifest itself in the form of response time advantages in migraine as compared to controls. The study reported here attempted to replica te and extend the findings of Wray and colleagues (Brain 1995;118:25-3 5). Using identical cognitive tasks, three experiments failed to find differences between migraine with aura patients and controls: furtherm ore, an additional group of patients without aura were also statistica lly indistinguishable from controls with respect to response times. Er ror rates were consistently high across experiments, indicating that s ubjects were responding at or near chance levels. These findings cast doubt on the utility of straightforward cognitive psychological method s for the study of cortical hyperexcitability in migraine. Some theore tical difficulties concerning the interpretation of response times in the context of migraine pathophysiology are discussed.