The MIND Study: Design, Feasibility, and Baseline Characteristics of a Smartphone-Based Migraine Cohort

To describe the design, feasibility, and baseline characteristics of the Migraine Impact on Neurocognitive Dynamics (MIND) study, a 30-day smartphone-based cohort for high-frequency assessment of cognition and symptoms in adults with migraine.

Cognitive symptoms are an important component of migraine burden, but they are difficult to measure using single-visit testing or retrospective questionnaires. Repeated smartphone-based assessment may better capture real-world variability in cognition and symptoms.

Adults meeting International Classification of Headache Disorders, 3rd edition, criteria for migraine were enrolled remotely and completed 30 days of once-daily ecological momentary assessments and mobile cognitive tasks delivered through the Mobile Monitoring of Cognitive Change platform. Baseline measures assessed demographics, migraine characteristics, disability, mood, stress, and treatment patterns. Feasibility was evaluated using enrollment, completion, and retention metrics.

A total of 177 participants enrolled (mean age 38.8 ± 11.9 years; 79.7% female), including 80/177 (45.2%) with chronic migraine. Across the 30-day protocol, 3688 daily assessments were completed, representing 70.8% of all possible study days, and 70.6% of participants completed at least 20 days of monitoring. Completion remained above 60% across study days. At baseline, chronic migraine was associated with greater burden than low-frequency and high-frequency episodic migraine, including higher MIDAS scores (98.6 vs. 38.7 and 70.3), more days with concentration difficulty (16.0 vs. 7.9 and 11.5), and more days with functional interference (18.5 vs. 7.6 and 13.0).

The MIND study demonstrates the feasibility of high-frequency smartphone-based assessment of cognition and symptoms in migraine and provides a methodological foundation for future analyses of within-person cognitive and symptom dynamics across the migraine cycle.