Virtual Roller Coaster Ride Study Brings New Insights Into Migraine

THURSDAY, July 22, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Roller coasters contention up, down, implicit and backmost again astatine breakneck speeds, but if you are 1 of the millions of radical who get migraines, the risks whitethorn not beryllium worthy the thrill.

A caller survey by German researchers shows that folks who get migraines volition much apt consciousness motion sickness and dizziness aft a virtual roller coaster ride, compared with radical who don't get these blinding headaches.

These symptoms correlated straight with changes successful cardinal brain areas, the researchers said, and those insights could further probe into easing the headaches.

"Migraine patients reported much dizziness and question sickness, arsenic good arsenic longer grounds duration and strength successful a virtual roller coaster ride, and the encephalon of migraine patients reacted differently," said survey writer Dr. Arne May, a prof of neurology astatine the University of Hamburg. "We recovered differences not conscionable successful [symptoms], but besides successful circumstantial activations of areas wrong the brain's cerebellum and the frontal gyrus."

The brain's cerebellum helps modulate equilibrium and the frontal gyrus is liable for ocular processing.

More than conscionable a cautionary communicative astir the risks of roller coaster rides for radical with a past of migraines, the caller findings adhd to the knowing of migraine arsenic a sensory upset and whitethorn pave the mode toward treatments that code those symptoms.

For the study, 20 radical with a past of migraine and 20 radical without specified a past watched videos to acquisition a virtual roller coaster thrust portion researchers utilized functional MRI scans to way encephalon activity.

No 1 experienced a migraine during the virtual ride, but 65% of radical with migraine experienced dizziness compared to 30% of those without a past of these headaches. What's more, radical with migraine besides experienced symptoms for longer periods of clip than their counterparts without migraine, an mean of 1 infinitesimal 19 seconds compared to 27 seconds, respectively. People with migraines besides reported much aggravated question sickness, the survey showed.

People with migraine had accrued enactment successful 5 areas of the encephalon that correlated with migraine disablement and question sickness scores, May said. "Migraine patients process ocular input otherwise than different radical bash and activate a circumstantial encephalon web erstwhile this occurs," May explained.

Dizziness and question sickness are often neglected by doctors who dainty migraines, adjacent though they are portion of the spectrum of symptoms with this disease. "If we tin explicate specified symptoms and amusement that a circumstantial encephalon country is activated during attacks, they volition beryllium amended accepted," May said.

The survey appears successful the July 21 contented of Neurology,

Headache specialists said that the findings heighten the knowing and load of migraine.

"It truly confirms the dizziness and question sensitivity that migraine sufferers experience, and broadens our cognition of migraine arsenic a sensory disorder," said Dr. Teshamae Monteith. She is an subordinate prof of objective neurology and main of the headache part astatine the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Monteith is besides a chap of the American Academy of Neurology.

"Migraine is an invisible disorder, but these imaging findings validate the dizziness and question sensitivity and marque america deliberation astir attraction outcomes different than headache," said Monteith. "These symptoms tin beryllium disabling and whitethorn besides hap erstwhile playing virtual-reality video games."

"Dizziness is simply a communal grounds reported by radical impacted by migraine," agreed Dr. Brian Grosberg, manager of the Hartford HealthCare Headache Center successful Connecticut. "The findings successful this survey substantiate this acquisition and implicate areas of the encephalon progressive successful its processing."

More information

Learn much astir migraines and however they are treated astatine the American Academy of Neurology.

SOURCES: Arne May, MD, PhD, professor, neurology, University of Hamburg, Germany; Teshamae Monteith, MD, subordinate professor, objective neurology, and chief, headache division, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine; Brian Grosberg, MD, director, Hartford HealthCare Headache Center, Hartford, Conn.; Neurology, July 21, 2021