Headache and migraine aura

Seven-hundred-twenty of 1037 individuals (69%) answered “yes” to the following question about a primary headache disorder: “Do you get headaches that are NOT caused by a head injury, hangover, or an illness such as the cold or the flu?” The male-to-female ratio of people who responded “yes” to this question was 1:1.3. Two-hundred-fifty-four of 1037 individuals (24%) fulfilled criteria (Kaiser et al., 2019) of having experienced a migraine aura at any point during their lifetime. Individuals could have different types of migraine aura. Two-hundred-thirty of 254 (91%) individuals reported having had visual auras, 60 (24%) somato-sensory auras, 49 (19%) motor auras and 21 (8%) aphasic/dysarthric auras. Hundred-seventy-four of 531 women (33%) had a migraine aura and 77 of 500 men (15%). This difference was statistically significant (p<0.001, Chi-square test; male-to-female ratio: 1:2.2). People with migraine aura were slightly older than people without (median age: 30 (IQR: 24-38) years versus median age: 28 (IQR: 22-36) years, p=0.005, Mann-Whitney Rank Sum Test).