Contact heat evoked potentials and habituation measured interictally in migraineurs

Abstract

BackgroundA lack of habituation of different evoked potential modalities in migraine patients in-between attacks has been suggested.MethodsThis study investigates cortical response after painful stimuli evaluated by contact heat evoked potentials (CHEPs) and quantitative sensory testing (QST) during the migraine-free interval. We enrolled 22 migraine patients and 22 healthy subjects.ResultsCortical potentials after contact heat stimulation of the cheeks and the volar forearm at a temperature of 51°C showed significantly reduced A-δ-amplitudes in patients and healthy controls. When the subjects’ attention was drawn to an arithmetic task, a partial lack of habituation of amplitude could be seen in migraine patients. QST did not show any difference between migraineurs and controls.ConclusionOur findings can be primarily deemed to demonstrate that patients and healthy controls show significantly lower amplitudes while performing the calculation task. Without performing the calculation task we could not show the expected lack of habituation in migraineurs. Yet, while performing the calculation task our results partly suggest that hypothesis.

Weight, gender, and depressive symptoms in South Korea

“…The PHQ‐9 is a multipurpose instrument for screening, diagnosing, monitoring, and measuring the severity of depressive symptoms, with possible scores ranging from 0 to 27. The PHQ‐9 Korean version has been validated previously with several populations, including older adults (Han, Jo, Kwak, Pae, Steffens, Jo, & Park, 2008), clinical patients (Seo and Park, 2015), students (Yoon, Lee, Pae, Yoon, Patkar, Steffens, & Kim, 2014) and Korean‐Americans (Shin, Park, Cho, Chiu, Bang, H., & Bernstein, 2010); a score of 10 or higher has been validated in clinical studies as defining depression (Kroenke et al, 2001). Since this scale was included only in the 2014 wave, we could not include prior KNHANES data sets in the analysis.…”

Habituation to pain: a motivational-ethological perspective

“…An inability to habituate to pain or a fast disruption of habituation (dishabituation) may foster chronic pain problems [3]. Several studies have found that certain pain types, such as fibromyalgia [47,56,57], migraine [2,16,51,58,59] and chronic low back pain [15,37,43,61], are characterized by deficits in habituation to pain. Future research needs to unravel whether the attenuation of habituation in chronic pain patients stems from deficits in sensory processing and/or from deficits in contextual processing, for instance by activation of responses to pain in inappropriate contexts.…”

Pain transduction: a pharmacologic perspective

“…Despite these setbacks, research related to TRPV1 antagonism shows promising results. For example, one researcher evaluated the mechanism and efficacy of two TRPV1 antagonists, JNJ-38893777 and JNJ017203212, in the treatment of migraine headaches [29]. Their work demonstrated a significant reduction in calcitonin-related gene peptide (CGRP) release from the trigeminal system following administration [29].…”

“…For example, one researcher evaluated the mechanism and efficacy of two TRPV1 antagonists, JNJ-38893777 and JNJ017203212, in the treatment of migraine headaches [29]. Their work demonstrated a significant reduction in calcitonin-related gene peptide (CGRP) release from the trigeminal system following administration [29]. Notably, these antagonists decreased CGRP more significantly than sumatriptan, a widely used migraine treatment [29].…”

“…Their work demonstrated a significant reduction in calcitonin-related gene peptide (CGRP) release from the trigeminal system following administration [29]. Notably, these antagonists decreased CGRP more significantly than sumatriptan, a widely used migraine treatment [29]. The authors, however, acknowledged the complex pathophysiology of migraine headaches and recommend additional clinical studies with regard for the association of TRPV1 to migraine pathogenesis and the clinical utility of these agents.…”