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Migraine and attention to visual events during mind wandering

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Abstract

Although migraine is traditionally categorized as a primary headache disorder, the condition is also associated with abnormalities in visual attentional function in between headache events. Namely, relative to controls, migraineurs show both a heightened sensitivity to nominally unattended visual events, as well as decreased habituation responses at sensory and post-sensory (cognitive) levels. Here we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine whether cortical hypersensitivities in migraineurs extend to mind wandering, or periods of time wherein we transiently attenuate the processing of external stimulus inputs as our thoughts drift away from the on-going task at hand. Participants performed a sustained attention to response task while they were occasionally queried as to their attentional state—either “on-task” or “mind wandering.” We then analyzed the ERP responses to task-relevant stimuli as a function of whether they immediately preceded an on-task versus mind wandering report. We found that despite the commonly reported heightened visual sensitivities in our migraine group, they nevertheless manifest a reduced cognitive response during periods of mind wandering relative to on-task attentional states, as measured via amplitude changes in the P3 ERP component. This suggests that our capacity to attenuate the processing of external stimulus inputs during mind wandering is not necessarily impaired by the class of cortical hypersensitivities characteristic of the interictal migraine brain.

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Acknowledgments

We sincerely thank all our participants for their time and effort in our study. J.W.Y.K. and T.C.H. are supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council. M.J.S.M. is supported by the Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation.

Conflict of interest

All authors have no conflict of interest to declare.

Ethical standard

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, 2136 West Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    Julia W. Y. Kam, Chelsea Eades & Todd C. Handy

  2. Department of Psychology, College of Arts and Science, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada

    Marla J. S. Mickleborough

  3. Department of Medical Imaging, College of Medicine, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada

    Marla J. S. Mickleborough

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  1. Julia W. Y. Kam
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  2. Marla J. S. Mickleborough
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  3. Chelsea Eades
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  4. Todd C. Handy
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Correspondence to Marla J. S. Mickleborough.

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Kam, J.W.Y., Mickleborough, M.J.S., Eades, C. et al. Migraine and attention to visual events during mind wandering. Exp Brain Res 233, 1503–1510 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-015-4224-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-015-4224-x

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