We initially enrolled 58 consecutive migraine patients with typical aura (MAtot, ICHD-3beta code 1.2.1.1) who attended our headache clinic. We discarded recordings of 10 patients who did not fulfil our primary inclusion criteria (see below), and of one patient because he was an outlier. The final analysis set comprises therefore 47 patients (32 women, mean age 31.8 years). Patients were subdivided into those who experienced pure visual aura (MA, N = 27) and those who had in addition paraesthesia and/or dysphasia (i.e. complex neurological auras; MA+, N = 20). Auras usually developed gradually and were followed by headache. None had hemiplegic or brainstem auras or persistent aura without infarction. All patients had a varying combination of attacks with or without aura. We took information on various clinical characteristics by collecting up to two-month headache diaries at the time of the screening visit and the day of the recording session. Patients had to indicate duration of migraine history (years), attack frequency (n/month), attack duration (hours), and number of days elapsed since the last migraine attack (in 35 out of 47 patients) (Table 1).
Table 1 Clinical and demographic characteristics of healthy volunteers (HV), the total group of migraine with aura patients (MAtot) and its subgroups with pure visual aura (MA) or visual aura associated with paraesthesia and/or dysphasia (MA+). Data are expressed as means ± SD
Characteristics HV (n = 30) MAtot (n = 47) MA (n = 27) MA+ (n = 20)
Women (n) 18 32 17 15
Age (years) 33.4 ± 13.4 31.8 ± 9.3 31.7 ± 9.4 32.5 ± 9.5
Duration of migraine history (years) 16.1 ± 9.9 15.3 ± 9.5 17.0 ± 10.5
Attack frequency/month (n) 2.5 ± 2.6 2.1 ± 2.2 2.9 ± 3.0
Attack duration (hours) 28.8 ± 25.4 29.9 ± 27.2 27.4 ± 23.3
Days since the last migraine attack 17.5 ± 16.1 15.3 ± 16.4 20.6 ± 15.9