Is Chronic Migraine One End of a Spectrum of Migraine or a Separate Entity?

Is physiotherapy in migraines known to sufferers? A cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND

Migraine, a prevalent neurological condition, often impairs daily functioning and quality of life. While medications are the primary treatment, the potential of physiotherapy as an integrative approach remains underexplored. The aim of the study was to explore the awareness and experience of migraine patients regarding physiotherapy as a complementary treatment.

METHODS

A comprehensive survey was conducted on 200 migraine patients. Data collected included demographics, diagnosis, Migraine Disability Assessment Score Questionnaire (MIDAS) scores, and perceptions and experiences related to physiotherapy.

RESULTS

The average age of participants was 47.7 ± 13.2 years, with a predominance of females, 149 out of 200 (74.5%). The mean MIDAS score was 36.7 ± 45.3, indicating a significant impact on daily life. While 39 out of 200 (19.5%) had undergone physiotherapy for their headache, 161 out of 200 (80.5%) had not. Of those who had, 22 out of 39 (56.4%) reported benefits, including reduced attack intensity and frequency. Interestingly, 145 out of 161 (90.1%) expressed interest in physiotherapy, with many expecting it to reduce attack intensity, 57 out of 200 (28.5%) and frequency, 77 out of 200 (38.5%).

CONCLUSIONS

The study highlights the substantial burden of migraines and the potential of physiotherapy as an adjunctive treatment. Increasing awareness and accessibility to physiotherapy could offer migraine patients a more holistic treatment approach; however, randomized controlled trials are mandatory in order to confirm its efficacy.

Gradually shifting clinical phenomics in migraine spectrum: a cross-sectional, multicenter study of 5438 patients

Background

The aim of the study was to investigate whether MwoA and MwA are different manifestations of a single disease, distinct clinical entities, or located at two poles of a spectrum.

Methods

In this cross-sectional study, 5438 patients from 10 hospitals in China were included: 4651 were diagnosed with migraine without aura (MwoA) and 787 with migraine with aura (MwA). We used a validated standardized electronic survey to collect multidimensional data on headache characteristics and evaluated the similarities and differences between migraine subtypes. To distinguish migraine subtypes, we employed correlational analysis, factor analysis of mixed data (FAMD), and decision tree analysis.

Results

Compared to MwA, MwoA had more severe headaches, predominantly affected females, were more easily produced by external factors, and were more likely to have accompanying symptoms and premonitory neck stiffness. Patients with MwA are heterogeneous, according to correlation analysis; FAMD divided the subjects into three clear clusters. The majority of the differences between MwoA and MwA were likewise seen when typical aura with migraine headache (AWM) and typical aura with non-migraine headache (AWNM) were compared. Furthermore, decision trees analysis revealed that the chaotic MwA data reduced the decision tree’s accuracy in distinguishing MwoA from MwA, which was significantly increased by splitting MwA into AWM and AWNM.

Conclusions

The clinical phenomics of headache phenotype varies gradually from MwoA to AWM and AWNM, and AWM is a mid-state between MwoA and AWNM. We tend to regard migraine as a spectrum disorder, and speculate that different migraine subtypes have different “predominant regions” that generate attacks.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s10194-022-01461-5.

Impact of monthly headache days on anxiety, depression and disability in migraine patients: results from the Spanish Atlas

Identifying highly disabled patients or at high risk of psychiatric comorbidity is crucial for migraine management. The burden of migraine increases with headache frequency, but the number of headache days (HDs) per month after which disability becomes severe or the risk of anxiety and depression is higher has not been established. Here, we estimate the number of HDs per month after which migraine is associated with higher risk of anxiety and depression, severe disability and lower quality of life. We analysed 468 migraine patients (mean age 36.8 ± 10.7; 90.2% female), of whom 38.5% had ≥ 15 HDs per month. Our results show a positive linear correlation between the number of HDs per month and the risk of anxiety (r = 0.273; p < 0.001), depression (r = 0.337; p < 0.001) and severe disability (r = 0.519; p < 0.001). The risk of anxiety is higher in patients having ≥ 3HDs per month, and those with ≥ 19HDs per month are at risk of depression. Moreover, patients suffering ≥ 10HDs per month have very severe disability. Our results suggest that migraine patients with ≥ 10HDs per month are very disabled and also that those with ≥ 3HDs per month should be screened for anxiety.

Pharmacological options for the treatment of chronic migraine pain

Migraine is a debilitating neurological condition with symptoms typically consisting of unilateral and pulsating headache, sensitivity to sensory stimuli, nausea, and vomiting. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that migraine is the third most prevalent medical disorder and second most disabling neurological condition in the world. There are several options for preventive migraine treatments that include, but are not limited to, anticonvulsants, antidepressants, beta blockers, calcium channel blockers, botulinum toxins, NSAIDs, riboflavin, and magnesium. Patients may also benefit from adjunct nonpharmacological options in the comprehensive prevention of migraines, such as cognitive behavior therapy, relaxation therapies, biofeedback, lifestyle guidance, and education. Preventative therapies are an essential component of the overall approach to the pharmacological treatment of migraine. Comparative studies of newer therapies are needed to help patients receive the best treatment option for chronic migraine pain.

Comorbidity of Migraine and Epilepsy in Pediatrics: A Review

Migraine and epilepsy are classified as chronic paroxysmal neurologic disorders sharing many clinical features, as well as possible treatment options. This review highlights the similarities between migraine and epilepsy in pediatrics, focusing on epidemiologic, pathophysiological, genetic, clinical, and pharmacologic aspects. Despite the fact that several syndromes share symptoms of both migraine and epilepsy, further research is needed to clarify the pathophysiological and genetic basis of their comorbidity. Drugs used for prophylactic therapy of migraine and epilepsy have similar pharmacologic properties. The role of epileptic pharmacotherapy in the prophylaxis of migraine is assessed, including the use of conventional antiepileptic drugs, calcium channel blockers, and nonpharmacologic methods such as dietary therapy, supplements, and vagal nerve stimulation. Further randomized, controlled clinical trials assessing pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic methods for the treatment of both disorders are essential, in order to initiate new therapeutic approaches.

Chronic Migraine: An Update on Physiology, Imaging, and the Mechanism of Action of Two Available Pharmacologic Therapies

Several lines of research support the hypothesis that migraine is a spectrum of illness, with clinical symptoms that vary along a continuum from episodic migraine to chronic migraine. Physiologic changes may result in episodic migraine evolving into chronic migraine over months to years in susceptible individuals. With chronification, headache frequency increases, becoming more disabling and less responsive to therapy. Neurophysiologic and functional imaging research has reported that chronic migraine may be associated with severity‐specific metabolic, functional, and structural abnormalities in the brainstem. Without longitudinal studies, it is unclear whether these changes may represent a continuum of individual progression and/or are reversible. Furthermore, chronic migraine is associated with larger impairments in cortical processing of sensory stimuli when compared with episodic migraine, possibly caused by more pronounced cortical hyperexcitability.

Progressive changes in nociceptive thresholds and subsequent central sensitization due to recurrent migraine attacks in vulnerable individuals contribute to the chronic migraine state. This may result in changes to baseline neurologic function between headache attacks, evident in both electrophysiological and functional imaging research. Patients experiencing migraine chronification may report increased non‐headache pain, fatigue, psychiatric disorders (eg, depression, anxiety), gastrointestinal complaints, and other somatic conditions associated with their long‐term experience with migraine pain.

Recent research provides a foundation for differentiating episodic and chronic migraine based on neurophysiologic and neuroimaging tools. In this literature review, we consider these findings in the context of models designed to explain the physiology and progression of episodic migraine into chronic migraine, and consider treatment of chronic migraine in susceptible individuals. Advances in pharmacotherapy provide treatment options for chronic migraine. Of the currently available treatment options, only onabotulinumtoxinA and topiramate have received regulatory approval and have demonstrated efficacy in patients with chronic migraine, although the exact mechanisms of action are not fully elucidated.

The Comorbidity of Migraine and Epilepsy in Children and Adolescents

Migraine and epilepsy share a number of clinical attributes, including pathophysiology and clinical expression. Both are paroxysmal in nature and thus constitute episodic disorders, yet either may be chronic and/or recurrent. Epileptic seizures and migraine headaches may be mistaken one for the other and may even overlap. In particular, occipital lobe seizures may be misdiagnosed as migraine auras. In this article, we review the relationship between migraine and epilepsy, including the known genetic contributions to both conditions, prodromal, ictal, and postictal headache and shared pathophysiology and treatment options. We describe clinical conditions in which both migraine and epilepsy are prominent features. Lastly, we discuss electronecephaographic abnormalities that have been known to occur in individuals with migraine.

Evidence-Based Treatments for Adults with Migraine

Migraine, a significantly disabling condition, is treated with acute and preventive medications. However, some individuals are refractory to standard treatments. Although there is a host of alternative management options available, these are not always backed by strong evidence. In fact, most of the drugs used in migraine were initially designed for other purposes. Whilst effective, the benefits from these medications are modest, reflecting the need for newer and migraine-specific therapeutic agents. In recent years, we have witnessed the emergence of novel treatments, of which noninvasive neuromodulation appears to be the most attractive given its ease of use and excellent tolerability profile. This paper reviews the evidence behind the available treatments for migraine.

OnabotulinumtoxinA for chronic migraine: a critical appraisal

Chronic migraine (CM) is a severe disabling condition with a few available evidence-based management options. OnabotulinumtoxinA (onaBoNTA) is approved for use in a number of disorders. Its benefits and potential use in migraine were observed incidentally while treating patients cosmetically for wrinkles. The mechanism of action of onaBoNTA in CM is not fully understood, but there is evidence that this involves axonal transport via sensory fibers. The Phase III REsearch Evaluating Migraine Prophylaxis Therapy trials have established the efficacy as well as the long-term safety and tolerability of onaBoNTA in CM. This review will discuss the evidence behind its use in this setting.

Brain stimulation in migraine

Migraine is a very prevalent disease with great individual disability and socioeconomic burden. Despite intensive research effort in recent years, the etiopathogenesis of the disease remains to be elucidated. Recently, much importance has been given to mechanisms underlying the cortical excitability that has been suggested to be dysfunctional in migraine. In recent years, noninvasive brain stimulation techniques based on magnetic fields (transcranial magnetic stimulation, TMS) and on direct electrical currents (transcranial direct current stimulation, tDCS) have been shown to be safe and effective tools to explore the issue of cortical excitability, activation, and plasticity in migraine. Moreover, TMS, repetitive TMS (rTMS), and tDCS, thanks to their ability to interfere with and/or modulate cortical activity inducing plastic, persistent effects, have been also explored as potential therapeutic approaches, opening an interesting perspective for noninvasive neurostimulation for both symptomatic and preventive treatment of migraine and other types of headache. In this chapter we critically review evidence regarding the role of noninvasive brain stimulation in the pathophysiology and treatment of migraine, delineating the advantages and limits of these techniques together with potential development and future application.

Ictal epileptic headache: an old story with courses and appeals

The term “ictal epileptic headache” has been recently proposed to classify the clinical picture in which headache is the isolated ictal symptom of a seizure. There is emerging evidence from both basic and clinical neurosciences that cortical spreading depression and an epileptic focus may facilitate each other, although with a different degree of efficiency. This review address the long history which lead to the 'migralepsy' concept to the new emerging pathophysiological aspects, and clinical and electroencephalography evidences of ictal epileptic headache. Here, we review and discuss the common physiopathology mechanisms and the historical aspects underlying the link between headache and epilepsy. Either experimental or clinical measures are required to better understand this latter relationship: the development of animal models, molecular studies defining more precise genotype/phenotype correlations as well as multicenter clinical studies with revision of clinical criteria for headache-/epilepsy-related disorders represent the start of future research. Therefore, the definition of ictal epileptic headache should be used to classify the rare events in which headache is the only manifestation of a seizure. Finally, using our recently published criteria, we will be able to clarify if ictal epileptic headache represents an underestimated phenomenon or not.

Chronic daily cortical spreading depressions suppress spreading depression susceptibility

BACKGROUND

Migraine is a disabling chronic episodic disorder. Attack frequency progressively increases in some patients. Incremental cortical excitability has been implicated as a mechanism underlying progression. Cortical spreading depression (CSD) is the electrophysiological event underlying migraine aura, and a headache trigger. We hypothesized that CSD events during frequent migraine attacks condition the cortex to increase the susceptibility to further attacks.

METHODS

A single daily CSD was induced for 1 or 2 weeks in mouse frontal cortex; contralateral hemisphere served as sham control. At the end of CSD conditioning, occipital CSD susceptibility was determined by measuring the frequency of CSDs evoked by topical KCl application.

RESULTS

Sham hemispheres developed 8.4 ± 0.3 CSDs/hour, and did not significantly differ from naïve controls without prior cranial surgery (9.3 ± 0.4 CSDs/hour). After 2 but not 1 week of daily CSD conditioning, CSD frequency (4.9 ± 0.3 CSDs/hour) as well as the duration and propagation speed were reduced significantly in the conditioned hemispheres. Histopathological examination revealed marked reactive astrocytosis without neuronal injury throughout the conditioned cortex after 2 weeks, temporally associated with CSD susceptibility.

CONCLUSIONS

These data do not support the hypothesis that frequent migraine attacks predispose the brain to further attacks by enhancing tissue susceptibility to CSD.

Migraine is a neuronal disease

Migraine is a common, paroxysmal, highly disabling primary headache disorder with a genetic background. The primary cause and the origin of migraine attacks are enigmatic. Numerous clinical and experimental results suggest that activation of the trigeminal system (TS) is crucial in its pathogenesis, but the primary cause of this activation is not fully understood. Since activation of the peripheral and central arms of the TS might be related to cortical spreading depression and to the activity of distinct brainstem nuclei (e.g. the periaqueductal grey), we conclude that migraine can be explained as an altered function of the neuronal elements of the TS, the brainstem, and the cortex, the centre of this process comprising activation of the TS. In light of our findings and the literature data, therefore, we can assume that migraine is mainly a neuronal disease.

Childhood periodic syndromes: a population-based study

The objective of the present study was to estimate the prevalence and relative risk of symptoms suggestive of childhood periodic syndrome in migraine, migraine subtypes, and tension-type headache, relative to control subjects. The target population was all children (age 5-12 years) enrolled in public elementary schools in one Brazilian city (n = 2173). Consent was obtained for 1994 children; analyzable data were available for 1906 children, for a final sample of 1113 children with migraine, tension-type headache, or no headache. Parents were interviewed using validated questionnaires. Headache diagnosis was assigned according to the International Classification of Headache Disorders, 2nd edition. Relative risk of symptoms was drawn by headache categories relative to controls. For episodic migraine, the relative risk of all symptoms except nocturnal enuresis was significantly increased: motion sickness, recurrent limb pain, recurrent abdominal pain, and parasomnias, such as sleep talking, somnambulism, and bruxism. For tension-type headache, only nocturnal enuresis and motion sickness were not more common than in controls. In multivariate analyses, any interictal symptom was independently associated with any headache (P < 0.001), migraine headaches (P < 0.001), and tension-type headaches (P < 0.01). These findings indicate that interictal symptoms suggestive of childhood periodic syndromes are common in the population, and are associated with migraine and specific migraine subtypes, but also with tension-type headache.

Effect of preventive (beta blocker) treatment, behavioural migraine management, or their combination on outcomes of optimised acute treatment in frequent migraine: randomised controlled trial

OBJECTIVE

To determine if the addition of preventive drug treatment (β blocker), brief behavioural migraine management, or their combination improves the outcome of optimised acute treatment in the management of frequent migraine.

DESIGN

Randomised placebo controlled trial over 16 months from July 2001 to November 2005.

SETTING

Two outpatient sites in Ohio, USA.

PARTICIPANTS

232 adults (mean age 38 years; 79% female) with diagnosis of migraine with or without aura according to International Headache Society classification of headache disorders criteria, who recorded at least three migraines with disability per 30 days (mean 5.5 migraines/30 days), during an optimised run-in of acute treatment.

INTERVENTIONS

Addition of one of four preventive treatments to optimised acute treatment: β blocker (n=53), matched placebo (n=55), behavioural migraine management plus placebo (n=55), or behavioural migraine management plus β blocker (n=69).

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE

The primary outcome was change in migraines/30 days; secondary outcomes included change in migraine days/30 days and change in migraine specific quality of life scores.

RESULTS

Mixed model analysis showed statistically significant (P≤0.05) differences in outcomes among the four added treatments for both the primary outcome (migraines/30 days) and the two secondary outcomes (change in migraine days/30 days and change in migraine specific quality of life scores). The addition of combined β blocker and behavioural migraine management (-3.3 migraines/30 days, 95% confidence interval -3.2 to -3.5), but not the addition of β blocker alone (-2.1 migraines/30 days, -1.9 to -2.2) or behavioural migraine management alone (-2.2 migraines migraines/30 days, -2.0 to -2.4), improved outcomes compared with optimised acute treatment alone (-2.1 migraines/30 days, -1.9 to -2.2). For a clinically significant (≥50% reduction) in migraines/30 days, the number needed to treat for optimised acute treatment plus combined β blocker and behavioural migraine management was 3.1 compared with optimised acute treatment alone, 2.6 compared with optimised acute treatment plus β blocker, and 3.1 compared with optimised acute treatment plus behavioural migraine management. Results were consistent for the two secondary outcomes, and at both month 10 (the primary endpoint) and month 16.

CONCLUSION

The addition of combined β blocker plus behavioural migraine management, but not the addition of β blocker alone or behavioural migraine management alone, improved outcomes of optimised acute treatment. Combined β blocker treatment and behavioural migraine management may improve outcomes in the treatment of frequent migraine.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

Clinical trials NCT00910689.