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Published on: June 2, 2014
Migraine and white matter lesions: a mendelian randomization study
Junyan Huo1, Gan Zhang1, Wenjing Wang1
1Department of Neurology, Peking University Third Hospital, No. 49, North Garden Rd., Haidian District, Beijing, 100191, China.
Abstract:
Previous studies have found that migraine patients are associated with white matter lesions (WMLs), but the causal relationship between the two remains unclear. We intend to explore the bidirectional causal relationship between migraine and WMLs using a two-sample mendelian randomization (MR) method. We employed summary-level data from a recent large-scale genome-wide association study (GWAS) that characterized three white matter (WM) phenotypes: white matter hyperintensities (WMH, N = 18,381), fractional anisotropy (FA, N = 17,673), and mean diffusivity (MD, N = 17,467), as well as migraine (N = 589,356). The inverse variance-weighted (IVW) method was used as the main approach for analyzing causality. Weighted median analysis, simple median analysis, and MR-Egger regression served as complementary methods. The bidirectional MR study affords no support for causality between WMLs and migraine. In all MR methods, there was no obvious causal evidence between them. In our bidirectional MR study, we didn't reach this conclusion that WMLs can cause migraine, migraine wouldn't increase the risk of WMLs, either.
Insights
This study investigated the causal link between white matter lesions (WMLs) and migraine using Mendelian randomization. Findings indicate no significant bidirectional causal relationship between WMLs and migraine.
Area of Science:
- Neurology
- Genetics
- Epidemiology
Background:
- Migraine is frequently associated with white matter lesions (WMLs).
- The etiological relationship between migraine and WMLs remains unclear.
- Understanding this relationship is crucial for clinical management and research.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the bidirectional causal relationship between migraine and WMLs.
- To determine if WMLs increase migraine risk or if migraine increases WML risk.
- To leverage large-scale genetic data for robust causal inference.
Main Methods:
- Utilized a two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) approach.
- Employed summary-level data from large genome-wide association studies (GWAS).
- Analyzed three white matter phenotypes (WMH, FA, MD) and migraine, applying inverse variance-weighted (IVW), weighted median, simple median, and MR-Egger regression methods.
Main Results:
- No evidence of a causal effect of WMLs on migraine was found across all applied MR methods.
- No evidence of a causal effect of migraine on WMLs was found.
- The bidirectional MR analysis did not support a causal link in either direction.
Conclusions:
- The study provides no support for a causal relationship between white matter lesions and migraine.
- Migraine does not appear to increase the risk of developing WMLs.
- WMLs do not appear to cause or increase the risk of migraine.
