Migraine and cognitive decline among women: prospective cohort study

Abstract

Objective To evaluate the association between migraine and cognitive decline among women.Design Prospective cohort study. Setting Women's Health Study, United States.Participants 6349 women aged 65 or older enrolled in the Women's Health Study who provided information about migraine status at baseline and participated in cognitive testing during follow-up. Participants were classified into four groups: no history of migraine, migraine with aura, migraine without aura, and past history of migraine (reports of migraine history but no migraine in the year prior to baseline). Main outcome measuresCognitive testing was carried out at two year intervals up to three times using the telephone interview for cognitive status, immediate and delayed recall trials of the east Boston memory test, delayed recall trial of the telephone interview for cognitive status 10 word list, and a category fluency test. All tests were combined into a global cognitive score, and tests assessing verbal memory were combined to create a verbal memory score. ResultsOf the 6349 women, 853 (13.4%) reported any migraine; of these, 195 (22.9%) reported migraine with aura, 248 (29.1%) migraine without aura, and 410 (48.1%) a past history of migraine. Compared with women with no history of migraine, those who experienced migraine with or without aura or had a past history of migraine did not have significantly different rates of cognitive decline in any of the cognitive scores: values for the rate of change of the global cognitive score between baseline and the last observation ranged from −0.01 (SE 0.04) for past history of migraine to 0.08 (SE 0.04) for migraine with aura when compared with women without any history of migraine. Women who experienced migraine were also not at increased risk of substantial cognitive decline (worst 10% of the distribution of decline). When compared with women without a history of migraine, the relative risks for the global score ranged from 0.77 (95% confidence interval 0.46 to 1.28) for women with migraine without aura to 1.17 (0.84 to 1.63) for women with a past history of migraine. ConclusionIn this prospective cohort of women, migraine status was not associated with faster rates of cognitive decline.

Migraine and Risk of Dementia: A Nationwide Retrospective Cohort Study

“…Some studies have shown no significant differences among those with and without migraine [11,12,13], whereas others have shown worse cognitive function among those with prior migraine [14,15,16]. A prospective cohort study of 6,354 women aged 65 years and older who experience migraines showed that they exhibit more cognitive decline in later years than women with no history of migraine [17]. However, the incidence of dementia increases with age in the general population.…”

Migraine and Cognitive Decline: A Topical Review

“…Four longitudinal studies have been performed that assess the association between migraine and cognitive decline in adults (see Table 1) using data from the Maastricht Aging Study (MAAS), 24 the Baltimore Epidemiologic Catchment Area Study (ECA), 25 the Epidemiology of Vascular Ageing Study (EVA) 26 and the Women’s Health Study (WHS). 27 Unlike some of the cross-sectional studies, all of the longitudinal studies have used population-based samples.…”

“…25–27 The remaining study only asked participants whether a doctor had diagnosed them as having migraine headaches. 24 Three studies assessed whether their participants experienced migraine with aura.…”

“…Participants in EVA were assessed three times during follow-up 26 and participants in WHS were assessed twice during follow-up. 27 Average follow-up ranged from a mean of 3.4 in WHS 27 to approximately 12 years in the Baltimore Epidemiology of Vascular Aging Study. 25 …”

Macro- and microstructural alterations in migraine and cluster headache

“…Earlier studies showed that migraine and CH patients have a decline of memory processing during headache attack, but not between attacks and no progressive cognitive decline was detected [145,146]. While our results are solely structural in nature, given the strong coupling between structure and function in the brain, functional correlates also have to be considered.…”