RESEARCH - Even in blind patients, light worsens migraines

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Even in blind patients, light worsens migraines

Boston Globe

January 11, 2010

The painful aversion to light that sends migraine sufferers into

darkened rooms when their throbbing headaches start surprisingly also

affects some blind people, Boston researchers report in a paper that

describes a new light-sensitive pathway in the brain that is separate

from visual perception.

Rami Burstein of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center led a team of

researchers who studied 20 blind people who were longtime migraine

sufferers. Six of them could not see light at all because their eyes

or their optic nerves had been damaged or surgically removed. Light

did not worsen their headaches. The 14 others could detect light, but

degenerative eye diseases had left the light-sensitive rods and cones

in their retinas unable to perceive images. For these people, light

did intensify the pain of their migraines, leading the authors to

conclude that light receptors in the eye apart from those used for

vision were related to exacerbating migraines.

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Read the full article here:

http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2010/01/11/light_worsens_migraines_in\

_blind_patients/

Not an MD