Am J Psychiatry 1981; 138:1182-1187
Copyright © 1981 by American Psychiatric Association
Directional effects of skin temperature self-regulation on regional cerebral blood flow in normal subjects and migraine patients
JL Claghorn, RJ Mathew, JW Largen and JS Meyer
Vascular headache of the migraine type is associated with vasomotor changes
in cerebral arteries. The authors studied whether skin temperature training
(biofeedback) reduces the frequency, severity, and duration of these
headaches by measuring the regional cerebral blood flow in 11 migraine
patients and 9 normal volunteers using the noninvasive 133Xe inhalation
technique. Half of each group was randomly assigned to a hand-warming or a
hand-cooling group. Cerebral blood flow increased in several regions of the
left hemisphere to a statistically significant degree only for the
migraineurs who were in the hand- warming group. The pattern of vasomotor
regulation apparently differs between migraine subjects and normal
subjects. The migraineurs' headache symptoms were affected by both warming
and cooling, but warming produced more salutary effects.
