Wu Di, Zhou Zhiyuan, Wang Yingfan, Liu Hongxing, Yu Yuanwen, Chen Qiqi, Wang Xiaoshan
Department of Neurology, The Affiliated Brain Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China.
Department of Neurology, Shanghai General Hospital, Shanghai, China.
Front Neurol. 2025 Jul 30;16:1567150. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2025.1567150. eCollection 2025.
Migraine is a chronic neurological disorder associated with a variety of abnormal visual symptoms. However, the mechanisms of visual processing in migraine are not fully understood. This study aimed to investigate neuromagnetic activity abnormalities under visual stimuli in migraine patients using magnetoencephalography (MEG).
Magnetoencephalography recordings during exposure to visual stimuli were collected for 22 episodic migraine patients without aura during the interictal period and 22 age- and gender-matched healthy controls (HCs). The spectral power and functional connectivity (FC) of visual neuromagnetic activation were estimated using minimum norm estimation combined with the Welch technique and corrected amplitude envelope correlation.
Compared to HCs, migraineurs exhibited attenuated spectral power in the gamma2 band of the bilateral medial orbitofrontal cortices, bilateral posterior cingulate cortices, bilateral temporal poles, right lateral orbitofrontal cortex, and left transverse temporal cortex. Migraineurs also exhibited the following increases in FC relative to HCs between vision- and pain-related brain regions: In the alpha band, FC between the left cuneus and left medial orbitofrontal cortex was significantly increased. In the beta band, FC between the left lateral occipital cortex and bilateral anterior cingulate cortices was significantly increased. In the gamma1 band, FC of the right cuneus with the bilateral insulae, left parahippocampal cortex, bilateral posterior central cortices, and bilateral anterior cingulate cortices was significantly increased. Migraineurs also showed significantly increased FC between the left lateral occipital cortex and the right medial orbitofrontal cortex, left posterior central cortex, and bilateral anterior cingulate cortices. The clinical variables (headache history, attack frequency, and pain intensity) had no significant correlation with MEG results.
Taken together, these findings demonstrate altered spectral power in pain-processing regions and altered FC between vision and pain-related regions in migraineurs under visual stimuli in multi-frequencies. These results may contribute to understanding the relationship between visual dysfunction and headache onset in migraineurs, providing valuable insights into the underlying pathophysiology.
偏头痛是一种与多种异常视觉症状相关的慢性神经疾病。然而，偏头痛中视觉处理的机制尚未完全明确。本研究旨在使用脑磁图（MEG）研究偏头痛患者在视觉刺激下的神经磁活动异常。
收集了22名发作性无先兆偏头痛患者在发作间期暴露于视觉刺激时的脑磁图记录，以及22名年龄和性别匹配的健康对照者（HCs）的记录。使用最小范数估计结合韦尔奇技术和校正后的幅度包络相关性来估计视觉神经磁激活的频谱功率和功能连接性（FC）。
与HCs相比，偏头痛患者在双侧内侧眶额皮质、双侧后扣带回皮质、双侧颞极、右侧外侧眶额皮质和左侧颞横皮质的γ2频段表现出频谱功率衰减。相对于HCs，偏头痛患者在视觉和疼痛相关脑区之间的FC也有以下增加：在α频段，左侧楔叶与左侧内侧眶额皮质之间的FC显著增加。在β频段，左侧枕外侧皮质与双侧前扣带回皮质之间的FC显著增加。在γ1频段，右侧楔叶与双侧岛叶、左侧海马旁皮质、双侧中央后皮质和双侧前扣带回皮质之间的FC显著增加。偏头痛患者还表现出左侧枕外侧皮质与右侧内侧眶额皮质、左侧中央后皮质和双侧前扣带回皮质之间的FC显著增加。临床变量（头痛病史、发作频率和疼痛强度）与MEG结果无显著相关性。
综上所述，这些发现表明，在多频率视觉刺激下，偏头痛患者疼痛处理区域的频谱功率改变，视觉和疼痛相关区域之间的FC改变。这些结果可能有助于理解偏头痛患者视觉功能障碍与头痛发作之间的关系，为潜在的病理生理学提供有价值的见解。
