EVENT-RELATED POTENTIALS (P300) IN PRIMARY HEADACHE IN CHILDHOOD AND ADOLESCENCE

There is strong evidence for a loss of habituation during cognitive pr ocessing in migraine as measured by P300 and contingent negative varia tion in adults. Event-related potentials evoked by an oddball paradigm have not yet been studied in children and adolescents suffering from different primary headache types. We recorded visually evoked event-re lated potentials (two consecutive trials, 200 stimuli each) in 48 chil dren and adolescents suffering from migraine without or with aura, fro m episodic tension-type headache, and from ergotamine-induced headache and analyzed the latencies, amplitudes, and reaction times. No statis tically significant differences were noted between all headache types and healthy controls analyzing the averaged parameters for the whole m easurement. However, a highly significant loss of cortical habituation as measured by P300 amplitude and latency could be observed in migrai ne without and with aura by analyzing the first and the second trial o f measurement separately. This phenomenon increased with age and could not be seen in healthy controls, or patients with tension-type headac he or ergotamine-induced headache. Our data suggest a specific cogniti ve processing in migraine even in children and adolescents. Measuremen t of the habituation effect in P300 latency and amplitude provides a s pecific method to differentiate between primary headache types in chil dhood and adolescence.