• Kyong Jin Shin, Ho-Joon Lee, and Kang Min Park.
• Department of Neurology, Haeundae Paik Hospital, Inje University College of Medicine, Haeundae-ro 875, Haeundae-gu, Busan, South Korea.
• J Headache Pain. 2019 Dec 9; 20 (1): 112.

BackgroundThe aim of this study is to investigate the alterations of thalamic nuclei volumes and the intrinsic thalamic network in patients with migraine.MethodsWe enrolled 35 patients with migraine without aura and 40 healthy controls. All subjects underwent three-dimensional T1-weighted imaging. The thalamic nuclei were segmented using the FreeSurfer program. We investigated volume changes of individual thalamic nuclei and analyzed the alterations of the intrinsic thalamic network based on volumes in the patients with migraine.ResultsRight and left thalamic volumes as a whole were not different between the patients with migraine and healthy controls. However, we found that right anteroventral and right and left medial geniculate nuclei volumes were significantly increased (0.00985% vs. 0.00864%, p = 0.0002; 0.00929% vs. 0.00823%, p = 0.0005; 0.00939% vs. 0.00769%, p < 0.0001; respectively) whereas right and left parafascicular nuclei volumes were decreased in the patients with migraine (0.00359% vs. 0.00435%, p < 0.0001; 0.00360% vs. 0.00438%, p < 0.0001; respectively) compared with healthy controls. The network measures of the intrinsic thalamic network were not different between the groups.ConclusionsWe found significant alterations of thalamic nuclei volumes in patients with migraine compared with healthy controls. These findings might contribute to the underlying pathogenesis of the migraine.Trial RegistrationNone.

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