Visually guided acquired equivalence learning and related memory processes in childhood migraine
01/30/2020
Zsófia Giricz1, Márton Edelmayer1, Ákos Pertich1, Balázs Bodosi1, Viktória Balikó1, Diána Nyujtó1, Ágnes Fehér1, Gabriella Eördegh2, Gábor Braunitzer3, Attila Nagy1
1 Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Szeged
2 Faculty of Health Sciences and Social Studies, University of Szeged
3 Laboratory for Perception & Cognition and Clinical Neuroscience, Nyírő Gyula Hospital, 1135Lehel utca 5961, Budapest, Hungary
Headaches manifest differently in children than in adults and the cause of this difference could be the degree of brain maturation. The deficits of visually-guided cognitive functions and the damaged brain structures in the adult migraineurs are well documented. The aim of our study was to investigate whether the basal ganglia and the hippocampi are affected in childhood migraine. A visual learning paradigm proved to be able to dissociate basal ganglia-mediated learning and memory processes from hippocampus-mediated ones (Rutgers Acquired Equivalence Test /RAET/) was used. The test consists of the acquisition phase (a feedback-guided associative learning) and the testing phase (recalling part and generalization part). Twenty pediatric patients diagnosed with migraine without aura and 20 healthy child volunteers were eligible for the study. Examining the median number of the trials required for completing the acquisition phase, no significant difference was found between the two examined groups (p=0.151). There was no significant difference between the two investigated groups regarding the error ratios in the acquisition phase (p=0.154), in the recalling (p=0.772) and generalization (p=0.955) parts of the test phase. In a previous study we found significant differences in the acquisition and generalization of associations in the RAET between the adult migraineurs and healthy controls. However, these differences were not found in children patients with migraine. These results suggest that the chronic presence of the disease might be in the background of the differences found between the two adult groups. This work was supported by a grant from SZTE ÁOK-KKA Grant No.:2019/270-62-2.