Migraine - evidence for a disturbance of cerebral maturation in man?

The contingent negative variation (CNV), a slow cortical potentia I between two defined stimuli, was used to record the effect of age in 162 migraine patients and 320 healthy controls aged between 8 and 59 years. The early co mponent (ICNV) and habituation slope of 32 GO-trials are presented. There w ere no significant differences between healthy controls and migraine patien ts in ICNV amplitudes or habituation slope up to the age of 19 years. In th e age groups from 20-59 years the healthy controls showed a significantly r educed iCNV compared-with migraine patients and healthy controls below 20 y ears of age. While the habituation slope increased in healthy controls, the re was no habituation of ICNV in migraine patients. It is suggested that re duced ICNV amplitudes in healthy controls indicate a state of cerebral matu ration. This maturation effect is missing in adult migraine patients, leadi ng to pronounced attentional effort in these patients. (C) 1999 Elsevier Sc ience Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.