THURSDAY, June 2 (HealthDay News) -- Use of precision ophthalmic tints (POTs) may reduce perceptual distortions and visual discomfort in migraine, possibly via a neurological pathway, according to a study published online May 26 in Cephalalgia.
Jie Huang, Ph.D., from Michigan State University in East Lansing, and colleagues investigated the neurological basis for the beneficial effects of POTs on visual cortical activation in 11 patients with migraine. Participants and 11 non-headache controls matched by age and gender viewed stressful and non-stressful striped patterns through gray, POT, and control-colored lenses. Visual cortical activation was measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging.
The investigators found that there was no difference for migraineurs and controls in their responses to non-stressful patterns with any of the lenses. On viewing stressful patterns with gray- and control-colored lenses, migraineurs had greater cortical activation than controls, with the absence of characteristic low-pass spatial frequency (SF) tuning in extrastriate visual areas. Both cortical activation and SF tuning normalized in migraine patients with the use of POTs. Use of POTs reduced visual discomfort when observing stressful patterns or under usual viewing conditions more than the other two lenses.
"The normalization of cortical activation and SF tuning in the migraineurs by POTs suggests a neurological basis for the therapeutic effect of these lenses in reducing visual cortical hyperactivation in migraine," the authors write.
One of the study authors disclosed financial ties to the U.K. Medical Research Council, which owns the rights to the Intuitive Colorimeter and POTs used in this study. Cerium Visual Technologies provided POTs for this study.
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