Migraine--evidence for a disturbance of cerebral maturation in man?

The contingent negative variation (CNV), a slow cortical potential between two defined stimuli, was used to record the effect of age in 162 migraine patients and 320 healthy controls aged between 8 and 59 years. The early component (iCNV) and habituation slope of 32 GO-trials are presented. There were no significant differences between healthy controls and migraine patients in iCNV amplitudes or habituation slope up to the age of 19 years. In the age groups from 20-59 years the healthy controls showed a significantly reduced iCNV compared with migraine patients and healthy controls below 20 years of age. While the habituation slope increased in healthy controls, there was no habituation of iCNV in migraine patients. It is suggested that reduced iCNV amplitudes in healthy controls indicate a state of cerebral maturation. This maturation effect is missing in adult migraine patients, leading to pronounced attentional effort in these patients.