People who regularly suffer from migraines are more likely to get dizzy or suffer motion sickness when they ride a rollercoaster, a new study has revealed.
A group of 40 people, half regularly suffering from migraines and half not, had their brains scanned while they watched videos of a virtual rollercoaster ride.
As well as revealing those struggling with migraines get more dizzy, the team from the University of Hamburg in Germany found they had more nerve cell activity in certain areas of the brain, and less activity in other areas.
The visual processing area of the brain was one of the main regions that experienced heightened activity in the migraine sufferers as they watched the roller coaster.
According to the NHS, around 10 million people aged 15-69 in the UK suffer from migraines, causing up to 16,500 emergency hospital admissions every year.
The team hope that by identifying and pinpointing these changes, future studies can better understand migraine and lead to the development of new treatments.
People who regularly suffer from migraines are more likely to get dizzy or suffer motion sickness when they ride a rollercoaster, a new study has revealed. Stock image
A migraine is a moderate to severe headache felt as a throbbing pain on one side of the head.
However, in some people it can also result in feeling sick, being sick, as well as light and sound sensitivity.
Migraine is a common health condition, according to the NHS, who say it affects around one in every five women and around one in every 15 men.
The condition usually starts to impact people in early adulthood.
‘Millions of people regularly experience painful and debilitating migraine headaches that can reduce their quality of life,’ said study author Arne May
‘People with migraine often complain of dizziness, balance problems and misperception of their body’s place in space during migraine.’
This prompted the virtual roller coaster study, that found some of these problems are not only magnified in people who experience migraine, but they are also associated with changes in various areas of the brain.
May and colleagues used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to take brain scans of each participant as they watched videos to experience the virtual roller coaster rides.
None of the volunteers experienced a migraine during the virtual rides.
After they finished watching videos of the virtual rollercoasters they completed a survey.
This asked them about their perceived levels of dizziness, motion sickness and other symptoms they may have experienced during the ‘ride’.
They found 65 per cent of people who regularly experience migraines found that they experienced dizziness during the ‘ride’ compared to 30 per cent of people who don’t experience migraines.
On a questionnaire about motion sickness, which scored symptom intensity on a scale of 1-180, those with a history of migraines had an average score of 47 compared to an average score of 24 for people without.
People with migraines also experienced symptoms longer, an average of one minute and 19 seconds compared to an average of 27 seconds.
From the brain scans, researchers were able to identify changes in nerve cell activity based on blood flow to certain areas of the brain.
A group of 40 people, half regularly suffering from migraines and half not, had their brains scanned while they watched videos of a virtual rollercoaster ride. Stock image
People with migraines had increased activity in five areas of the brain, including two areas in the occipital gyrus, the visual processing area of the brain, and decreased activity in two other areas including the middle frontal gyrus.
These brain changes correlated with migraine disability and motion sickness scores.
‘One other area of the brain where we found pronounced nerve cell activity in people with migraine was within the pontine nuclei, which helps regulate movement and other motor activity,’ said May.
‘This increased activity could relate to abnormal transmission of visual, auditory and sensory information within the brain.
‘Future research should now look at larger groups of people with migraine to see if our findings can be confirmed.’
The findings have been published in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.