Neuropsychological findings in migraine: a systematic review

ABSTRACT. Patients with migraine often experience cognitive dysfunction during a migraine attack, but they have also been reported to complain about cognitive impairment after an attack and during the interictal period. Objective: The aim of this study was to determine what neuropsychological test methods are used to assess cognitive functioning in migraine patients and to examine the neuropsychological findings in adult (≥18 years) migraineurs compared to adult (≥18 years) healthy controls (HC). Methods: A systematic review was conducted on the literature published between 2012 and the present. The search results were screened and additional studies identified in the lists of references in the selected articles. A total of 16 articles met the inclusion criteria. Results: The 16 articles included in the review compared chronic migraineurs (CM), migraineurs with (MwA) and without aura (MwoA), and migraineurs without aura classification (MIG) to HC. A total of 45 neuropsychological assessment methods were identified. CM and MwA were found to perform significantly worse than HC in executive function, attention, and visual functioning. Additionally, both MwA and MwoA performed significantly worse than HC in memory functions. CM and both MwA and MwoA also performed significantly worse than HC in general cognitive functioning. Surprisingly, MIG performed significantly better than HC in several cognitive domains, including executive, motor, and language functioning and general cognitive functioning. Conclusions: This systematic review mostly concurs with the results of an earlier systematic review on the topic from 2012, but with the important addition that different migraine diagnostic groups should be assessed separately.