title: Attention in children and adolescents with headache.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The previous studies reporting consistent visual reaction times slowing in patients with migraine prompted us to verify if headache could be associated to a broader impairment of attention. This study aims to undertake a thorough investigation of attentional performance by extending the evaluation to children with primary headache of different types.
  
  
  METHODS
  We compared 62 children with headache (14 migraineurs with aura, 29 without aura and 19 with tension type headache) and 52 controls without headache, matched for age, sex, and intelligence using Conners' Continuous Performance Test.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The 3 clinical groups did not differ in attentional measures. The headache patients, collapsed in 1 single sample, had mean scores in Hit Reaction Time significantly different from those of controls and also had a higher percentage of atypical scores in 2 indices of the Conners' Continuous Performance Test (faster mean reaction time and more commissions).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results confirm the presence of an association between attentional problems and headache that may impact academic learning and daily activities on the long term. The finding that the 3 clinical groups did not show significant differences in attentional performance supports the hypothesis that migraine and tension headache form a continuum that may share the same pathophysiological mechanisms. These results are discussed considering that neurotransmitters and the cerebral circuits subserving headache, personality profile, and attention could overlap, thus predisposing these children to even mild attention malfunctioning.
authors.affiliation: Developmental Neurology Division, Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Neurologico C. Besta, Milano, Italy. driva@istituto-besta.it
authors.forename: Daria
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Riva
authors.forename: Arianna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Usilla
authors.forename: Federica
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Aggio
authors.forename: Chiara
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Vago
authors.forename: Chiara
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Treccani
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bulgheroni
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology*; D002648:Child; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology; D005260:Female; D006261:Headache / Q000150:complications*; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009460:Neurologic Examination; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011930:Reaction Time; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013223:Statistics as Topic