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BMC Neurology
Published in: BMC Neurology 1/2011

Open Access 01-12-2011 | Case control study

Hypervigilance or avoidance of trigger related cues in migraineurs? - A case-control study using the emotional stroop task

Authors: Anne-Katrin Puschmann, Claudia Sommer

Published in: BMC Neurology | Issue 1/2011

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Abstract

Background

"Negative affect" is one of the major migraine triggers. The aim of the study was to assess attentional biases for negative affective stimuli that might be related to migraine triggers in migraine patients with either few or frequent migraine and healthy controls.

Methods

Thirty-three subjects with frequent migraine (FM) or with less frequent episodic migraine, and 20 healthy controls conducted two emotional Stroop tasks in the interictal period. In task 1, general affective words and in task 2, pictures of affective faces (angry, neutral, happy) were used. For each task we calculated two emotional Stroop indices. Groups were compared using one-way ANOVAs.

Results

The expected attentional bias in migraine patients was not found. However, in task 2 the controls showed a significant attentional bias to negative faces, whereas the FM group showed indices near zero. Thus, the FM group responded faster to negative than to positive stimuli. The difference between the groups was statistically significant.

Conclusions

The findings in the FM group may reflect a learned avoidance mechanism away from affective migraine triggers.
Appendix
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Metadata
Title
Hypervigilance or avoidance of trigger related cues in migraineurs? - A case-control study using the emotional stroop task
Authors
Anne-Katrin Puschmann
Claudia Sommer
Publication date
01-12-2011
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
BMC Neurology / Issue 1/2011
Electronic ISSN: 1471-2377
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2377-11-141

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