title: Magnetic suppression of perceptual accuracy is not reduced in episodic migraine without aura.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Altered cortical excitability is thought to be part of migraine pathophysiology. Reduced magnetic suppression of perceptual accuracy (MSPA) has been found in episodic migraine with aura and in chronic migraine, and has been interpreted as reduced inhibition of the occipital cortex in these migraine subtypes. Results are less clear for episodic migraine without aura. In the present study we compared MSPA between 24 healthy controls and 22 interictally measured episodic migraine patients without aura. In addition, we investigated test-retest reliability in 33 subjects (24 controls, 9 migraine).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Visual accuracy was assessed by letter recognition and modulated by transcranial magnetic stimulation delivered to the occipital cortex at different intervals to the letter presentation (40, 100 and 190 ms). The results confirm suppression of visual accuracy at the 100 ms interval (p < 0.001), but there were no significant group differences (percentage of correctly recognized letters, control: 36.1 ± 36.2; migraine: 44.0 ± 32.3, p = 0.44). Controls and migraine patients were pooled for assessment of test-retest reliability (n = 33). Levels of suppression at 100 ms were similar at test (percentage of correctly recognized letters: 42.3 ± 32.6) and retest (41.9 ± 33.8, p = 0.90) and test-retest correlations were good (r = 0.82, p < 0.001).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results demonstrate that occipital cortex inhibition as assessed with MSPA is not reduced in episodic migraine without aura. This suggests a larger role of occipital cortex excitability in episodic migraine with aura and in chronic migraine compared to episodic migraine without aura. Test-retest reliability of MSPA was good.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, University of Munich, Marchioninistr, 15, 81377 Munich, Germany. Veronika.Rauschel@med.uni-muenchen.de.
authors.forename: Veronika
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Rauschel
authors.forename: Ruth
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ruscheweyh
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Eggert
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Straube
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D020326:Migraine without Aura / Q000503:physiopathology*; D012018:Reflex; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012912:Sneezing; D050781:Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult