Is ciliary muscle affected in migraine patients with aura and without aura?

The aim of this study was to compare spherical equivalents (SE) and spherical equivalents with cycloplegic (CSE) values of migraine patients with and without visual aura, with those patients without migraine complaints.

We included patients over the age of 18 years, who had 20/20 uncorrected vision, and who did not have ocular pathology in their examination. The patients were divided into 3 groups: Group 1: 86 eyes of 43 migraine patients without aura, Group 2: 38 eyes of 19 migraine patients with aura, and Group 3: 60 eyes of 30 patients without migraine. Spherical equivalents and spherical equivalents with cycloplegic from the auto-refractometrical values of the patients were compared.

The mean age of the migraine and control patients was 34.2±8.3 and 33.6±10.8 years, respectively. Forty-three (69%) of 62 migraine patients had migraine without aura and 19 (31%) had migraine with aura. The right and left eyes of the patients were evaluated together and a significant correlation was found between the groups. To evaluate the impact of cycloplegia in patients, SE and CSE values were obtained and differences between these values were evaluated. It was found that the change in Group 2 patients was significantly lower than the change in Group 3 patients (p=0.024).

We found that the cycloplegic spherical equivalents values of our patients with aura were lower than control patients. We need further studies to reveal whether migraine with aura is the trigger or the result of those attacks.