Peri-ictal changes of cortical excitability in children suffering from migraine without aura.

In adult patients with migraine, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has been used to examine cortical excitability between attacks, but there have been discrepant results. No TMS study has examined cortical excitability in children or adolescents with migraine. Here, we employed TMS to study regional excitability of the occipital (phosphene threshold [PT] and suppression of visual perception) and motor (resting motor threshold and cortical silent period) cortex in ten children suffering from migraine without aura and ten healthy age-matched controls.