MRI of the occipital cortex, red nucleus, and substantia nigra during visual aura of migraine.

The authors report a patient with migraine in whom they measured brain oxygenation indirectly during a visual aura by means of T2-weighted MRI. An aura of left homonomous quadrantanopia was accompanied by increased T2-weighted contrast intensity of bilateral regions in the occipital cortex, and the red nucleus and substantia nigra bilaterally. The mechanisms of these changes remain to be determined, but in this patient the migraine aura was associated with probable hyperoxia and not cerebral ischemia.