• J Headache Pain · Feb 2025

    White matter alterations in episodic migraine without aura patients assessed with diffusion MRI: effect of free water correction.

    • Irene Guadilla, Ana R Fouto, Amparo Ruiz-Tagle, Inês Esteves, Gina Caetano, Nuno A Silva, Pedro Vilela, Raquel Gil-Gouveia, Santiago Aja-Fernández, Patrícia Figueiredo, and Rita G Nunes.
    • Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain. irene.guadilla@uva.es.
    • J Headache Pain. 2025 Feb 12; 26 (1): 3131.

    ObjectiveTo assess the effect of modeling free water (FW) on the identification of white matter (WM) microstructure alterations using diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging (dMRI) in episodic migraine without aura patients compared with healthy controls.BackgroundDiffusion tensor imaging (DTI) studies examining WM in migraine patients previously overlooked the potential influence of FW partial volume effects. Correcting FW effects could offer a clearer understanding of WM changes in migraine. This study is the first to incorporate FW effects when evaluating alterations in WM tracts in migraine patients, offering a comparison to standard DTI analysis.MethodsA group of 14 patients with low-frequency episodic menstrual-related migraine without aura and 15 healthy controls matched for the phase of the menstrual cycle were recruited and underwent dMRI acquisitions. FW partial volume fraction was estimated, the diffusion signal corrected and the diffusion parameters calculated from both FW-corrected and uncorrected signals. Tract-Based Spatial Statistics (TBSS) and WM skeleton regions of interest (ROI) analyses were used to compare between groups.ResultsComparisons between control subjects and migraine patients with TBSS and ROI analyses revealed significantly lower axial diffusivity (AD), both with and without FW correction, as well as altered FW values in migraine patients in some WM tracts. TBSS detected MD changes only after FW correction.ConclusionsThese findings suggest WM alterations in these migraine patients in comparison with control subjects, in accordance with other migraine studies. Differences in the diffusion parameters might point to inflammatory processes in migraine related to cellular swelling.© 2025. The Author(s).

      Pubmed     Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…