Objective There is an unexplained association between disturbed sleep and migraine. In this blinded crossover study, we investigate if experimental sleep restriction has a different effect on pain thresholds and suprathreshold pain in interictal migraineurs and controls. Methods Forearm heat pain thresholds and tolerance thresholds, and trapezius pressure pain thresholds and suprathreshold pain were measured in 39 interictal migraineurs and 31 healthy controls after two consecutive nights of partial sleep restriction and after habitual sleep. Results The effect of sleep restriction was not significantly different between interictal migraineurs and controls in the primary analyses. Pressure pain thresholds tended to be lower (i.e., increased pain sensitivity) after sleep restriction in interictal migraineurs compared to controls with a 48-hour preictal-interictal cut-off (p = 0.061). We found decreased pain thresholds after sleep restriction in two of seven migraine subgroup comparisons: heat pain thresholds decreased in migraineurs with lower pain intensity during attacks (p = 0.005) and pressure pain thresholds decreased in migraineurs with higher severity of photophobia during attacks (p = 0.031). Heat pain thresholds tended to decrease after sleep restriction in sleep-related migraine (p = 0.060). Sleep restriction did not affect suprathreshold pain measurements in either group. Conclusion This study could not provide strong evidence for an increased effect of sleep restriction on pain sensitivity in migraineurs compared to healthy controls. There might be a slightly increased effect of sleep restriction in migraineurs, detectable using large samples or more pronounced in certain migraine subgroups.

Previous studies have shown increased pain scores to painful stimulation after experimental sleep restriction, but reduced or unchanged magnitude of the event related potentials (ERPs) when averaged in the timedomain. However, some studies found increased response magnitude when averaging in the time-frequency domain. The aim of this study was to determine whether ERP-latency jitter may contribute to this discrepancy. Methods: Ninety painful electrical stimuli were given to 21 volunteers after two nights of 50% sleep restriction and after two nights of habitual sleep. ERPs were analyzed in the time-domain (N2-and P2-peaks) and time-frequency domain (power spectral density). We quantified latency jitter by the mean consecutive difference (MCD) between single-trial peak latencies and by phase locking value (PLV) across trials. Results: P2-MCD increased from 20.4 AE 2.1 ms after habitual sleep to 24.3 AE 2.2 ms after sleep restriction (19%, p ¼ 0.038) and PLV decreased from 0.582 AE 0.015 after habitual sleep to 0.536 AE 0.015 after sleep restriction (7.9%, p ¼ 0.009). We found no difference for N2-MCD. Conclusions: Our results indicate that partial sleep restriction increase latency jitter in cortical responses to experimental pain. Significance: Latency jitter may contribute to the discrepancies between ERP-responses in the time-frequency domain and time-domain. Latency jitter should be considered when ERPs are analyzed.