[Migraine manifestations and lymphocyte pleocytosis of the cerebrospinal fluid]

The authors report the case of a 26 year old non-migrainous man who presented over a 5 week period with a cluster of classical migrainous attacks associated with CSF lymphocytosis. The association of this type of CSF response with attacks of migraine is unusual; in migraine the CSF is normal or may show an isolated increase in protein content (with the exception of the very rare familial hemiplegic migraine). In the reported case, other conditions liable to give rise to migraine and CSF lymphocytosis having been excluded (acute DLE, brucellosis...), this association corresponded to a benign and spontaneously regressive condition, possibly a migraine symptomatic of benign acute lymphocytic meningitis. The authors suggest that a primary meningeal inflammation may have been the cause of the cluster of migraine attacks which in this case were more accompanied perhaps because they induced a wave of depression of cortical activity.