Ricerc@Sapienza

We investigated whether the stimulation frequency (SF), the pain phases, and different diagnoses of trigeminal autonomic cephalalgias (TACs) may influence the habituation to pain. We studied the habituation of the nociceptive blink reflex R2 responses at different SFs (.05,.1,.2,.3,.5, and 1 Hz), in 28 episodic cluster headache (ECH) patients, 16 during and 12 outside the bout; they were compared with 16 episodic paroxysmal hemicrania (EPH) during the bout and 21 healthy subjects. We delivered 26 electrical stimuli and subdivided stimuli 2 to 26 in 5 blocks of 5 responses for each SF.

Background: Repetitive convergent inputs to a single post-synaptic neuron can induce long-term potentiation (LTP) or depression (LTD) of synaptic activity in a spike timing-dependent manner. Objective: Here we set a protocol of visual paired associative stimulation (vPAS) of the primary visual cortex (V1) in humans to induce persistent changes in the excitatory properties of V1 with a spike timing rule.

Background: The purpose of this review is to provide a comprehensive overview of the findings of clinical electrophysiology studies aimed to investigate changes in information processing of migraine with aura patients. Main body: Abnormalities in alpha rhythm power and symmetry, the presence of slowing, and increased information flow in a wide range of frequency bands often characterize the spontaneous EEG activity of MA.

Background: A short ketogenic diet (KD) treatment can prevent migraine attacks and correct excessive cortical response. Here, we aim to prove if the KD-related changes of cortical excitability are primarily due to cerebral cortex activity or are modulated by the brainstem. Methods: Through the stimulation of the right supraorbital division of the trigeminal nerve, we concurrently interictally recorded the nociceptive blink reflex (nBR) and the pain-related evoked potentials (PREP) in 18 migraineurs patients without aura before and after 1-month on KD, while in metabolic ketosis.

In this chapter, we review the findings obtained by neurophysiological studies in migraine with aura (MA).
Spontaneous electroencephalography activity in MA is characterized by abnormalities in alpha rhythm power and symmetry, and the presence of slowing, and increased, information flow in a wide range of frequency bands. Evoked potential (EP) studies indicate the occurrence of increased grand-average cortical response amplitudes, interhemispheric response asymmetry, as well as deficient habituation to any kind of repetitive sensory stimulation, in MA patients.