Conclusions
migraine, hyper-perfused
MIGRAINE, CORTEX
Transcranial direct current stimulation can alter the brain’s perfusion, suggesting a correlation between blood flow and cortical responsivity. Perfusion of the occipital lobe stimulated in this study was lower in migraineurs than in healthy controls at baseline, which could be due to a lower preactivation level of visual areas. Moreover, only the right parietal operculum had been hyper-perfused in migraineurs before the treatment. Therefore, it is unknown whether direct stimulation of hyper-perfused areas would have a more pronounced clinical effect. Nevertheless, this study documents that anodal tDCS over the visual cortices in migraineurs increased perfusion. As previous statistical analysis of the clinical data showed that stimulation significantly reduced monthly migraine days in episodic migraineurs, we suggest that this could be partially mediated by an increased preactivation level, and hence increased perfusion, of the visual cortex.