Temporal Integration of Motion Streaks in Migraine

Abstract

Migraine is associated with differences in visual perception, specifically, deficits in the perception of motion. Migraine groups commonly show poorer performance (higher thresholds) on global motion tasks compared to control groups. Successful performance on a global motion task depends on several factors, including integrating signals over time. A “motion streak” task was used to investigate specifically integration over time in migraine and control groups. The motion streak effect depends on the integration of a moving point over time to create the illusion of a line, or “streak”. There was evidence of a slower optimum speed for eliciting the motion streak effect in migraine compared to control groups, suggesting temporal integration is different in migraine. In addition, performance on the motion streak task showed a relationship with headache frequency.