%0 Journal Article
%T Hypervigilance or avoidance of trigger related cues in migraineurs? - A case-control study using the emotional stroop task
%A Anne-Katrin Puschmann
%A Claudia Sommer
%J BMC Neurology
%D 2011
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1471-2377-11-141
%X Thirty-three subjects with frequent migraine (FM) or with less frequent episodic migraine, and 20 healthy controls conducted two emotional Stroop tasks in the interictal period. In task 1, general affective words and in task 2, pictures of affective faces (angry, neutral, happy) were used. For each task we calculated two emotional Stroop indices. Groups were compared using one-way ANOVAs.The expected attentional bias in migraine patients was not found. However, in task 2 the controls showed a significant attentional bias to negative faces, whereas the FM group showed indices near zero. Thus, the FM group responded faster to negative than to positive stimuli. The difference between the groups was statistically significant.The findings in the FM group may reflect a learned avoidance mechanism away from affective migraine triggers.The reported prevalence of chronic migraine in the population is 1.4-2.2.% [1]. Patients with episodic migraine have an annual risk of 2,5% to develop chronic migraine [2]. An intermediate headache frequency of 6 to 9 days per month and even more a critical frequency of 10 to 14 headache days per month increase the risk for chronicity [3]. Further risk factors are obesity, stressful life events, snoring, and overuse of certain classes of medication. Up to 90% of migraine patients are able to name trigger factors like emotional stress, sleep deprivation, visual triggers (e.g. flickering lights) or hormonal changes that precipitate their attacks [4,5]. Triggers are equally named by patients with episodic and chronic migraine [6]. The mode of action of these migraine triggers is as yet unknown. Several authors proposed trigeminal signaling mechanisms that sensitize certain brain areas, resulting in general sensitization of meningeal nociceptors and subsequently migraine pain [7,8]. It has also been suggested that the interaction of several triggers leads to migraine attacks [9,10].An attentional bias towards pain-related cues, i.e. selective att
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2377/11/141