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Visual Snow is a neurological condition that is experienced as an ‘augmented’ reality of auras, glowing lines, depression, anxiety and depersonalisation. Whilst Visual Snow produces a collection of different symptoms, it is clinically recognised. A commonly experienced visual symptom is described as the 'persistent effect of television “snow”', and was first described in the literature in 1995. Distorted Constellations is an immersive, sensory, labyrinthine environment and playful experience of an augmented reality interpretation of artist, Nwando Ebizie's unique perception of the world. This exhibit draws on Visual Snow experienced as experienced by the artist and informed by interdisciplinary research, including cognitive science. The exhibition, public events and recent inbuilt psychological study, embrace the subjective nature of perception and highlight a role for augmented reality art experiences as cognitive science experiments in public settings.This contributed symposia will stimulate debate and questions arising across the intersections of art, neurology, cognitive science and public participation to leverage understanding of reality and the self through interdisciplinary considerations of cognitive difference. The role of reflexive collaborative inquiry and active public participation in emergent research is considered as a way to offer socially responsible scientific tools to the cognitive science community.

This document published by the International Headache Society provides practical recommendations for the preventive pharmacological treatment of migraines. The recommendations are categorized into two levels: Optimal and Essential, based on medication availability in different regions. The document includes a table listing drugs with evidence of efficacy for migraine prevention and their availability in the World Health Organization Model List of Essential Medicines. The recommendations aim to establish essential standards of migraine management worldwide and provide guidance on evaluating treatment effectiveness, switching medications, combination therapy, and duration of treatment. The document also discusses comorbidities, specific medications for chronic migraine, preventive treatment in different populations, and managing medication overuse headache. [Extracted from the article]

Background: In an effort to improve migraine management around the world, the International Headache Society (IHS) has here developed a list of practical recommendations for the acute pharmacological treatment of migraine. The recommendations are categorized into optimal and essential, in order to provide treatment options for all possible settings, including those with limited access to migraine medications. Methods: An IHS steering committee developed a list of clinical questions based on practical issues in the management of migraine. A selected group of international senior and junior headache experts developed the recommendations, following expert consensus and the review of available national and international headache guidelines and guidance documents. Following the initial search, a bibliography of twenty-one national and international guidelines was created and reviewed by the working group. Results: A total of seventeen questions addressing different aspects of acute migraine treatment have been outlined. For each of them we provide an optimal recommendation, to be used whenever possible, and an essential recommendation to be used when the optimal level cannot be attained. Conclusion: Adoption of these international recommendations will improve the quality of acute migraine treatment around the world, even where pharmacological options remain limited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The cyclical brain disorder of sensory processing accompanying migraine phases lacks an explanatory unified theory. Methods: We searched Pubmed for non-invasive neurophysiological studies on migraine and related conditions using transcranial magnetic stimulation, electroencephalography, visual and somatosensory evoked potentials. We summarized the literature, reviewed methods, and proposed a unified theory for the pathophysiology of electrophysiological abnormalities underlying migraine recurrence. Results: All electrophysiological modalities have determined specific changes in brain dynamics across the different phases of the migraine cycle. Transcranial magnetic stimulation studies show unbalanced recruitment of inhibitory and excitatory circuits, more consistently in aura, which ultimately results in a substantially distorted response to neuromodulation protocols. Electroencephalography investigations highlight a steady pattern of reduced alpha and increased slow rhythms, largely located in posterior brain regions, which tends to normalize closer to the attacks. Finally, non-painful evoked potentials suggest dysfunctions in habituation mechanisms of sensory cortices that revert during ictal phases. Conclusion: Electrophysiology shows dynamic and recurrent functional alterations within the brainstem-thalamus-cortex loop varies continuously and recurrently in migraineurs. Given the central role of these structures in the selection, elaboration, and learning of sensory information, these functional alterations suggest chronic, probably genetically determined dysfunctions of the synaptic short- and long-term learning mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nummular headache (NH) is a primary headache characterized by superficial coin-shaped pain. NUMITOR (NCT 05475769) is an observational study evaluating the responder rate of preventive drugs in NH patients. The treatment response was assessed between weeks 8 and 12 compared with the baseline. Patients were included between February 2002 and October 2022. Demographic and clinical variables were assessed; treatment response was estimated by 50%, 30%, and 75% responder rates and treatment discontinuation due to inadequate tolerability. A total of 183 out of 282 patients fulfilled eligibility criteria and completed the study. Patients were aged 49.5 (standard deviation (SD): 16.8) years, and 60.7% were female. NH phenotype was a parietal circular pain of four centimeters' diameter, moderate intensity, and oppressive quality. At baseline, patients had 25 (interquartile range) pain days per month. Preventive treatment was used by 114 (62.3%) patients. The highest 50% and 75% responder rates corresponded to onabotulinumtoxinA (62.5%, 47.5%), followed by gabapentin (43.7%, 35.2%). Oral preventive drugs were not tolerated by 12.9–25%. The present study provides class IV evidence of the effectiveness of oral preventive drugs and onabotulinumtoxinA in the treatment of primary NH. OnabotulinumtoxinA was the most effective and best-tolerated drug, positioning it as first-line treatment of NH. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims To gather information on useful medications to treat visual snow syndrome (VSS) as well as to validate an instrument to assess its clinical severity and the course of the disorder over time. Methods Four hundred patients with VSS were included in this web-based prospective questionnaire study. All subjects completed a treatment questionnaire and a clinical diary. The first allowed evaluation of the effects of previous medications on visual snow, while the second measured VSS symptoms daily over the course of 30 days. Results Patients commonly reported previous use of medications such as antidepressants, antiepileptics, antibiotics and benzodiazepines. However, none of these drug classes was beneficial for the majority of patients. Recreational drugs and alcohol worsened visual snow symptoms in several reports. Vitamins and benzodiazepines had high therapeutic ratios, although in most cases they did not change the course of VSS. The monthly diary confirmed that the static in VSS is a consistent symptom over time. It also showed that indoor and fluorescent lights have a worse effect on symptoms when compared with natural outdoor lighting. Conclusions The study confirms clinical experience that medications are generally ineffective in VSS, with the exception of vitamins and perhaps benzodiazepines, which could be beneficial in some patients. The 30-day diary represents a useful tool to measure symptom progression over time, which could be used in future trials on VSS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims Neuronal nitric oxide synthase (nNOS) is highly expressed within the cardiovascular and nervous systems. Studies in genetically modified mice suggest roles in brain blood flow regulation while dysfunctional nNOS signalling is implicated in cerebrovascular ischaemia and migraine. Previous human studies have investigated the effects of non-selective NOS inhibition but there has been no direct investigation of the role of nNOS in human cerebrovascular regulation. We hypothesized that inhibition of the tonic effects of nNOS would result in global or localized changes in cerebral blood flow (CBF), as well as changes in functional brain connectivity. Methods and results We investigated the acute effects of a selective nNOS inhibitor, S-methyl-L-thiocitrulline (SMTC), on CBF and brain functional connectivity in healthy human volunteers (n  =   19). We performed a randomized, placebo-controlled, crossover study with either intravenous SMTC or placebo, using magnetic resonance imaging protocols with arterial spin labelling and functional resting state neuroimaging. SMTC infusion induced an ∼4% decrease in resting global CBF [−2.3 (−0.3, −4.2) mL/100g/min, mean (95% confidence interval, CI), P  =   0.02]. In a whole-brain voxel-wise factorial-design comparison of CBF maps, we identified a localized decrease in regional blood flow in the right hippocampus and parahippocampal gyrus following SMTC vs. placebo (2921 voxels; T  =   7.0; x  = 36; y = −32; z = −12; P  <   0.001). This was accompanied by a decrease in functional connectivity to the left superior parietal lobule vs. placebo (484 voxels; T  =   5.02; x = −14; y = −56; z  = 74; P  =   0.009). These analyses adjusted for the modest changes in mean arterial blood pressure induced by SMTC as compared to placebo [+8.7 mmHg (+1.8, +15.6), mean (95% CI), P  =   0.009]. Conclusions These data suggest a fundamental physiological role of nNOS in regulating regional CBF and functional connectivity in the human hippocampus. Our findings have relevance to the role of nNOS in the regulation of cerebral perfusion in health and disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]