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The Relation Between Migraine, Typical Migraine Aura and “Visual Snow”

Christoph Josef Schankin, Farooq Maniyar, Till Sprenger, Denise E. Chou, Michael Eller, Peter James Goadsby

Headache The Journal of Head and Face Pain, 2014

120 participants · 175 citations

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To assess the relationship between the phenotype of the "visual snow" syndrome, comorbid migraine, and typical migraine aura on a clinical basis and using functional brain imaging. BACKGROUND: Patients with "visual snow" suffer from continuous TV-static-like tiny flickering dots in the entire visual field. Most patients describe a syndrome with additional visual symptoms of the following categories: palinopsia ("afterimages" and "trailing"), entopic phenomena arising from the optic apparatus itself (floaters, blue field entoptic phenomenon, photopsia, self-light of the eye), photophobia, nyctalopia (impaired night vision), as well as the non-visual symptom tinnitus. The high prevalence of migraine and typical migraine aura in this population has led to the assumption that "visual snow" is caused by persistent migraine aura. Due to the lack of objective measures, alternative diagnoses are malingering or a psychogenic disorder. METHODS: (1) The prevalence of additional visual symptoms, tinnitus, and comorbid migraine as well as typical migraine aura was assessed in a prospective semi-structured telephone interview of patients with "visual snow." Correlations were calculated using standard statistics with P < .05 being considered statistically significant. (2) Areas with increased brain metabolism in a group of "visual snow" patients in comparison to healthy controls were identified using [(18) F]-2-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose positron emission tomography and…

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