title: The Comorbidity of Migraine and Epilepsy in Children and Adolescents.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, University of Louisville School of Medicine, Louisville, KY. Electronic address: michael.sowell@louisville.edu.
authors.forename: Michael K
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Sowell
authors.affiliation: Division of Child and Adolescent Neurology, Mayo Clinic Rochester, Rochester, MN.
authors.forename: Paul E
authors.initials: PE
authors.lastname: Youssef
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D015897:Comorbidity; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006801:Humans; D008881:Migraine Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology*