Executive and attentional functions in patients with migraine

Abstract

Introduction The Executive Functions (EF) allow the individual to direct behaviors to the goal, evaluate his/her efficiency and appropriateness, and eliminate ineffective strategies by other efficient and functional ones to solve short, medium, and long-term problems. To this end, attention is fundamental to learning and problem solving. Objective To relate executive and attentional functions with the presence or absence of migraine.  Methods A cross-sectional study on the presence of attentional and EF alterations in migrant patients, with a target sample of 42 subjects, 30 migrants and 13 non-migrants. Subjects above eighteen (18) years of age, recruited consecutively by convenience at the Centro Acadêmico Multiprofissional Dr. Agostinho Paolucci of the Faculdade de Medicina de Barbacena - CAM FAME, Faculdade de Medicina and Centro AMA de Desenvolvimento, were included in the study, regardless of sex, after completion of the free and informed consent form - FICF. Subjects with migraine were in accordance with the criteria of the International Classification of Headaches (ICHD-3). All subjects diagnosed with migraine and undergoing neuropsychological evaluation were included. The Psychological Attention Assessment Battery (APB) was used for the attention test and the Five Digits Test was used for the EF test. The APB measures the attentional performance in 3 (three) distinct types of attention, related to 1) the ability to maintain the focus of attention on a given stimulus for a prolonged time; 2) the ability to distribute attention resources for the simultaneous execution of multiple tasks; 3) the ability to alternate attention resources among different stimuli. The Five Digits Test verifies the speed of reasoning and response, its accuracy and assertiveness, and can also be used as a measure of attentional processes and their accuracy.  (To see the complet abstract, please, check out the PDF.)