A prospective study of juvenile migraine with aura

We studied a group of young migraine with aura patients with whom it was possible to reconstruct the course and the characteristics of the disturbances preceding or accompanying the onset of the headache. The 47 subjects, 31 female and 16 male, were diagnosed (IHS classification) as Migraine with typical aura (n = 40), Familial hemiplegic migraine (n = 1), Basilar migraine (n = 6), and Migraine with prolonged aura (n = 5). Visual (43 cases) and sensory disturbances (20 cases) were the most commonly described symptoms; a motor deficit was reported in 10 out of 47 cases. Other disturbances such as vertigo attacks, aphasia, spatial disorientation, loss of consciousness or a decreased level of consciousness with the appearance of automatic movements, were much rarer. In our cases the visual disturbances were not isolated but were accompanied by other symptoms in 29 cases, and in 5 of the 18 cases in which there were only visual symptoms, the disturbances presented in succession; a "march" of the sensory and motor disturbance was found in 66% and 68% of cases, respectively. The data from our cases in which the disturbance seems most frequently to originate in the occipital areas (visual disorders) and then to spread to the temporo-parietal regions in part confirms that there is a posterior to anterior dynamic in the cerebral areas involved.