Journal of Clinical and Experimental Investigations

Abstract

Objectives: The aim of this study was to compare the sympathetic nerve system profile of migraineurs during the headache-free periods to a group of normal subjects based on sympathetic skin response.
Materials and methods: 82 patients with migraine (20 migraine with aura and 62 without aura) and 35 healthy volunteers who are age-and sex-matched patients with migraine selected randomly from the hospital personnel as a control group were enrolled in the study. Patients reporting at least one of the autonomic symptoms during the attack periods regularly were considered migraineurs with having autonomic symptoms. Sympathetic skin response test was applied on both sides of the upper and lower limbs of all subjects.
Results: There were no subjects whose responses were absent for both right and left sides of upper and lower limbs. Patients with migraine had significantly longer sympathetic skin response latency than the control group. There was no significant difference between the mean latency and amplitude results in the migraine patients with and without aura or autonomic dysfunction or not (P>0.05). Additionally, sympathetic skin response amplitude values were not significantly different between the three groups (P>0.05).
Conclusions: Migraine patients exhibited significantly longer sympathetic skin response latency than controls, leading to suggest that sympathetic hypofunction occurred in patients with migraine during the headache-free period.