Background and purpose: Migraine affects about 12% of the general population and is one of the causes of cerebral parenchymal. Applying cross sectional imaging of brain particularly MRI opens a new approach in diagnosis of migraine pathogenesis and could highly influence the patients’ follow up program. We investigated anatomical MR imaging abnormality in people with and without migraine in sensitive MRI sequences. Materials and methods: This case-control study included 120 patients between 50-30 years of age referring neurology clinic. Patients with clinical symptoms of migraine were introduced to MRI units. The cases in the control group included those not meeting the diagnostic criteria for migraine. Brains MRI were evaluated for anatomical signal intensity changing. Two radiologists detected and recorded abnormal findings blindly in both groups based on special protocols. Results: Sixty people presented in each group were matched for age and sex. The mean ages of patients in case and control groups were 39.3±6.9 and 38.6±6.2 years, respectively. Changes of white matter hyperintensity foci were significantly higher at subcortical regions of the brain. In 35 patients (58.3%) of case group and 12 patients (20%) of controls there were supratentorial white matter signal changes in the brain MRI (P=0.000). Cerebral cortex was also involved in some individuals among the case group. Conclusion: In migrainous patients hypersignal foci were detected in white matter of the brain, therefore, proving such presence in patients with typical symptoms of migraine can assist in diagnosis and even MRI can be used in follow-up of the disease. Parenchymal abnormalities in migraine could show severity of the disease and brain damage.

Keywords: Headache, migraine, MRI

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