Shepherd A J
Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, London WC1E 7HX, UK.
Vision (Basel). 2020 Apr 30;4(2):23. doi: 10.3390/vision4020023.
There are a number of reports that perceptual, electrophysiological and imaging measures can track migraine periodicity. As the electrophysiological and imaging research requires specialist equipment, it has few practical applications. This study sought to track changes in performance on four visual tasks over the migraine cycle. Coherence thresholds were measured for two motion and two orientation tasks. The first part of the study confirmed that the data obtained from an online study produced comparable results to those obtained under controlled laboratory conditions. Thirteen migraine with aura, 12 without aura, and 12 healthy controls participated. The second part of the study showed that thresholds for discriminating vertical coherent motion varied with the migraine cycle for a majority of the participants who tested themselves multiple times (four with aura, seven without). Performance improved two days prior to a migraine attack and remained improved for two days afterwards. This outcome is as expected from an extrapolation of earlier electrophysiological research. This research points to the possibility of developing sensitive visual tests that patients can use at home to predict an impending migraine attack and so take steps to try to abort it or, if it is inevitable, to plan their lives around it.
有许多报告表明，感知、电生理和成像测量方法可以追踪偏头痛的周期性。由于电生理和成像研究需要专业设备，其实际应用较少。本研究旨在追踪偏头痛发作周期内四项视觉任务的表现变化。测量了两项运动任务和两项方向任务的相干阈值。研究的第一部分证实，在线研究获得的数据与在实验室控制条件下获得的数据结果相当。13名有先兆偏头痛患者、12名无先兆偏头痛患者和12名健康对照者参与了研究。研究的第二部分表明，对于大多数多次进行自我测试的参与者（4名有先兆，7名无先兆），辨别垂直相干运动的阈值随偏头痛发作周期而变化。在偏头痛发作前两天表现有所改善，且在发作后两天仍保持改善。这一结果与早期电生理研究的推断一致。该研究指出了开发敏感视觉测试的可能性，患者可以在家中使用这些测试来预测即将到来的偏头痛发作，从而采取措施尝试中止发作，或者，如果发作不可避免，则围绕发作来安排生活。
