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3D-Neuronavigation In Vivo Through a Patient's Brain During a Spontaneous Migraine Headache
Published on: June 2, 2014
Evidence for increased internal noise in migraineurs for contrast and shape processing
Kathryn E Webster1, J Edwin Dickinson, Josephine Battista
1School of Psychology, University of Western Australia, Australia.
Cephalalgia : an International Journal of Headache
|December 17, 2011
Summary
Migraineurs show increased internal noise in contrast processing, but not in general visual functions. This suggests specific visual processing deficits rather than widespread neural dysfunction in migraine.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Ophthalmology
- Visual Perception
Background:
- Migraine is associated with increased internal noise, particularly contrast-level dependent noise.
- Previous research suggests potential impacts on visual cortical functioning (V1) and global contour coding (V4).
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if increased internal noise in migraine affects tasks assessing V1 functioning.
- To determine if increased internal noise is evident in global contour coding (V4).
Main Methods:
- Eleven migraineurs and 12 controls performed psychophysical tasks: contrast detection, spiral path angle discrimination, and circularity deformation detection.
- Internal noise was estimated using an N-pass method comparing responses to repeated identical stimuli.
Main Results:
- Migraineurs exhibited significantly higher contrast thresholds under high external luminance noise.
- No significant group differences were found in thresholds for other tasks.
- Increased multiplicative noise in contrast processing was confirmed; increased additive noise was observed for the global form task.
Conclusions:
- Findings support increased multiplicative internal noise in contrast processing for migraineurs.
- No generalized increase in internal noise was found in V1; angular discrimination estimates were normal.
- Increased additive internal noise in global shape tasks co-occurred with enhanced efficiency in migraineurs.
