Temporal Integration of Motion Streaks in Migraine

Abstract

Migraine is associated with differences in visual perception, specifically, deficits in the perception of motion. Migraine groups commonly show poorer performance (higher thresholds) on global motion tasks compared to control groups. Successful performance on a global motion task depends on several factors, including integrating signals over time. A "motion streak" task was used to investigate specifically integration over time in migraine and control groups. The motion streak effect depends on the integration of a moving point over time to create the illusion of a line, or "streak". There was evidence of a slower optimum speed for eliciting the motion streak effect in migraine compared to control groups, suggesting temporal integration is different in migraine. In addition, performance on the motion streak task showed a relationship with headache frequency.

Keywords: migraine; motion perception; temporal integration.

Figure A1

Figure showing threshold elevation for (left) 0.1${}^{\circ }$ dot size and (right) 0.2${}^{\circ }$ dot size for migraine and control groups against horizontal and vertical backgrounds. Dot motion is horizontal. Error bars are one standard error of the mean.

Figure A2

Figure showing threshold elevation for (left) horizontal motion and (right) vertical motion against vertical and horizontal backgrounds. Dot size is 0.1${}^{\circ }$. Error bars are one standard error of the mean.

Figure A3

Figure showing difference in threshold elevation (parallel-orthogonal background) against speed for migraine and control groups. Error bars are one standard error of the mean.

Figure A4

Figure showing difference in threshold elevation (parallel-orthogonal background) against speed for migraine and control groups. Error bars are one standard error of the mean.

Figure 1

Figure showing schematic diagram of the stimulus. The Gaussian dot is presented in the centre of the screen, and moves either up, down, left or right. The task is to identify dot motion and indicate this using the corresponding arrow keys. There were five levels of dot contrast (relative to midgrey) and five possible speeds (1,4,7,10,13${}^{\circ }$/s) . The horizontal background orientation is shown. There is also a vertical background and homogenous grey background. Responses for motion orthogonal to the background were pooled, as were responses to motion parallel to the background. These were normalised against performance against the homogenous grey background.

Figure 2

Figure showing threshold elevation (dB) against speed of dot motion for migraine and control groups. Error bars are one standard error of the mean: (A) threshold (dB) against speed (deg/s) for motion orthogonal to the background orientation; and (B) threshold (dB) against speed (deg/s) for motion parallel to the background orientation.

Figure 3

Figure showing difference in threshold elevation (parallel-orthogonal background) against speed for migraine and control groups. Error bars are one standard error of the mean.