Affiliation:
1. Department of Neurology, GB Pant Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education and Research, New Delhi,
2. Department of Community Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India
Abstract
Objective:
To assess attention, vigilance, and executive functions in migraine patients during headache-free (interictal) periods and in healthy controls without migraine and to study the impact of migraine preventive treatment on these cognitive functions.
Methods:
Preventive drug-naive migraine patients, aged ≥18 years, without a history of medication overuse were studied and compared to non-migraine controls. Psychiatric comorbidity was screened by Patient Health Questionnaire-9, and those who screened positive were evaluated further by specific scales. The Epworth Sleepiness Scale assessed subjective complaints of sleep quality. Cognitive functions were assessed by Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), digit span forward and backward (DS-F, DS-B), trail-making tests (TMT-A and B) and Stroop word (SW), Stroop color (SC), and Stroop interference (SI) tests. Cognitive test scores at the end of 6 months following treatment were compared to baseline scores.
Results:
One hundred and fifty migraine patients and controls each were studied. Compared to controls, migraine patients performed significantly worse in DS-B (P < 0.0001), TMT-A (P = 0.00004), TMT-B (P < 0.0001), SW (P < 0.0001), SC (P < 0.0001), and SI (P = 0.0221). MMSE scores did not differ between patients and the controls (P = 0.3224). Compared to the patients without psychiatric comorbidity, migraine patients with psychiatric comorbidity showed no significant differences in the cognitive test scores. Significant improvement in all cognitive test scores (P < 0.001) was observed after 6 months of treatment.
Conclusion:
Migraine patients, compared to non-migraine controls, showed deficits in attention, vigilance, and executive functions during the interictal period, which improved with successful preventive treatment. Psychiatric comorbidities did not have a significant impact on cognitive dysfunctions.