• Gianluca Coppola, Antonio Di Renzo, Emanuele Tinelli, Barbara Petolicchio, Vincenzo Parisi, Mariano Serrao, Camillo Porcaro, Marco Fiorelli, Francesca Caramia, Jean Schoenen, Vittorio Di Piero, and Francesco Pierelli.
• Department of Medico-Surgical Sciences and Biotechnologies, Sapienza University of Rome Polo Pontino, Corso della Repubblica 79, 04100, Latina, Italy. gianluca.coppola@uniroma1.it.
• J Headache Pain. 2021 Jun 19; 22 (1): 58.

BackgroundWe searched for differences in resting-state functional connectivity (FC) between brain networks and its relationship with the microstructure of the thalamus between migraine with pure visual auras (MA), and migraine with complex neurological auras (MA+), i.e. with the addition of at least one of sensory or language symptom.Methods3T MRI data were obtained from 20 patients with MA and 15 with MA + and compared with those from 19 healthy controls (HCs). We collected resting state data among independent component networks. Diffusivity metrics of bilateral thalami were calculated and correlated with resting state ICs-Z-scores.ResultsAs compared to HCs, both patients with MA and MA + disclosed disrupted FC between the default mode network (DMN) and the right dorsal attention system (DAS). The MA + subgroup had lower microstructural metrics than both HCs and the MA subgroup, which correlated negatively with the strength of DMN connectivity. Although the microstructural metrics of MA patients did not differ from those of HCs, these patients lacked the correlation with the strength of DAS connectivity found in HCs.ConclusionsThe present findings suggest that, as far as MRI profiles are concerned, the two clinical phenotypes of migraine with aura have both common and distinct morpho-functional features of nodes in the thalamo-cortical network.

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