Prospective memory is dysfunctional in migraine without aura

Abstract

Introduction Prospective memory is the ability to carry out a delayed intended action, so to maintain and retrieve future plans, goals and activities. Deficits of prospective memory negatively impact on patients and caregivers' everyday living and determine poor adherence to treatment. Since frontal regions are involved in both event- and time-based prospective memory tasks and are impaired in migraine without aura, defects of prospective memory might occur in migraine without aura patients; until now this issue has not been investigated. The aim of the current study was to explore time- versus event-based prospective memory in migraine without aura. Patients and methods Ninty-one consecutive migraine without aura patients and 84 healthy subjects were enrolled in the study. They underwent a standardized measure of prospective memory evaluating both time-based and event-based prospective memory, and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment assessing global cognitive status. Moreover, all participants completed the Beck Depression Inventory-II and a self-administered version of the Apathy Evaluation Scale, to assess severity of depressive symptoms and apathy, respectively. Results Migraine without aura and healthy subjects did not differ on demographic aspects (i.e. age, education and gender). However, individuals with migraine without aura demonstrated impaired prospective memory performance compared to healthy subjects, with a greater impairment demonstrated for the time-based tasks. Within the migraine without aura group, no significant association was found between prospective memory performance and clinical scores, apathy, and depression. Conclusions Individuals with migraine without aura experience particular difficulty executing a future intention; therefore, migraine without aura is associated with dysfunction of prospective memory.

Neuroimaging investigation of memory changes in migraine: a systematic review

“…Neuroimaging findings suggest possible regions (hippocampus, insula, frontal, parietal, and temporal cortex) by which memory would be altered in individuals who suffer from migraine. These results support what was verified in studies that used cognitive tests and found alteration in prospective memory 8 , as well as in short-and long-term verbal 9,10 and visuo-spatial 10 memories. Cerebral alterations, seen in imaging techniques, are verified in the ictal Source: Research data.…”

“…Such cognitive dysfunctions would be the consequence of the pain processing and not only exclusive for migraine, but also for other types of pain 5,6,7 . Because of the overlapping that exists between the neuroanatomical and neurochemical substrates implicated in pain and cognition, the pain processing would compete with the cognitive functioning, thus affecting the memory performance 7,8,9,10 . In this way, pain affects both coding and recovery of common explicit memory 11 .…”

Cognitive dysfunction and migraine

“…Migraine patients had impaired verbal ability (especially language reception) at ages 3, 7, 9, 11, and 13, before the development of headache attacks, compared to controls without headache or subjects with tension type headache, but no decline with age was observed, suggesting that migraine did not cause verbal impairment itself but they had a shared risk factor [30]. Although longitudinal studies do not provide convincing evidence that cognitive function worsens over time in migraine patients, participants in most longitudinal studies were older than those in cross sectional and clinic-based studies [8–10, 13–15, 31–37], and both active (< 1 year since last attack) and non-active migraine patients were included (> 1 year since last attack), as potential confounders. The studies evaluating cognitive functions in migraine patients categorized according to age groups are summarized in Tables 1, 2, 3.…”

Headache - A Window to Dementia: An Unexpected Twist

“…A study focusing only on chronic migraine supported the idea that it causes neuroplasticity, resulting in maladaptation and cognitive dysfunction [22]. An observational study narrowed down the result of migraine without aura having only prospective memory dysfunction [23]. Migraine without aura patients have a range of cognitive complaints.…”