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Excitatory and inhibitory imbalance in migraine shown by altered oscillatory alpha activity

Poster Session E - Monday, March 9, 2026, 2:30 – 4:30 pm PDT, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballroom

Leonardo Sutandi¹ (), Andrew Clouter¹, Christina J. Howard¹, Louise O'Hare¹; ¹Nottingham Trent Univeristy

Migraine is a neurological disorder linked to photophobia and differences in visual task performance between attacks. Additionally, people with migraine aura commonly experience visual disturbances, such as scintillation and scotoma, preceding attack onset. A possible mechanism for such phenomena is excitatory and inhibitory (E/I) imbalance reflected in altered electrophysiological measures. Here, we assessed E/I via top-down (TD) mechanisms in the visuospatial attentional system involving both engagement (excitation) to an attended and suppression (inhibition) of the unattended visual hemifield. This was indexed by alpha-band oscillations (~8-14 Hz), reflecting desynchronised (decreasing) and synchronised (increasing) activity over posterior sites contralateral and ipsilateral to the attended hemifield, respectively. We measured posterior EEG activity of people with (n=17) and without migraine (n=16) during a spatially-cued endogenous attentional task with and without bilateral task-irrelevant gratings (Cruz et al., 2025; JNeurosci). Neutral spatial cue trials were included, acting as alternative baseline correction method in addition to pre-cue baseline, to control for temporal and spatial orienting of attention during target anticipation. Multilevel modelling showed a non-significant trend for poorer behavioural performance in migraineurs. EEG data showed controls having typical lateralised alpha power decreasing over contralateral and spatial orienting related increase over ipsilateral posterior areas. However, migraineurs showed stronger alpha power decrease in a bilateral manner and weaker spatial orienting related alpha power increase compared to controls. The absence of behavioural group effects alongside indication of E/I imbalance via alpha band oscillations among migraineurs warrant further investigation into the oscillatory components in the migraine brain.

Topic Area: ATTENTION: Spatial