Volume calculation of brain structures in migrain disease by using diffeomap software

Migraine which is known as a headache disease also include some accompanying neurological and gastrointestinal symptoms in addition to headache. In scientific literature, there are some studies which reveal volumetric alterations of some brain structures on MR images in relation to migraine but none of these studies showed volume changes involving the whole brain structures. The aim of this study is to examine the brain structure in a wider range and determine the volumetrically altered structures. 25 people with migraine (5 male, 20 female, mean age 37±9) as patient group (7 with aura, 18 without aura) and 25 people with no neurological history (5 male, 20 female, mean age 35±7) as control group are recruited for this study. Statistical analysis is done by using SPSS 15.0. Statistically significant results are obtained for the following structures: left and right suprerior frontal gyrus, left and right thalamus, left supramarginal gyrus, right angular gyrus, left and right medial temporal gyrus, right inferior occipital gyrus of migraine patients in comparison to control group (p<0.05). Those migraine patients with disease history of 5 years or more had volume decrease in left superior and inferior frontal gyri, right precentral gyrus and left cerebral nucleus in comparison to patients with disease history up to 4 years (p<0,05). Migraine patients with 10 attacks in a month had statistically significant volumetric decrease in right thalamus, left superior parietal gyrus and left globus pallidus as compared to patients with 9 attacks at most (p<0,05). In conclusion, our study supports migraine patophysiology literature. It is thought that brain structural alterations are risk factors for migraine disease. Affect of regional grey matter volumetric changes on migraine is not clear. In our opinion, this case is caused by methodological differences of scientific studies.