Page 137 - Migraine, the heart and the brain

Cerebellar function and ischemic brain lesions in migraine
and combined sum score of pegs during these tasks. The assembly task is adjusted for handedness by reversing pins and washers for left handed participants.
The block-design test was assessed following the manual for WAIS III (Kaufman and Lichtenberg, 1999). The participant is required to arrange a set of blocks to reproduce a displayed pattern printed on cardboard (3 by 4 inches) (Supplementary gure 1B). The items start simple, but get more dif cult with each next item. The size of the designs varies from 4 to 16 blocks. The time needed to assess these designs is recorded, and points are given according to cut off values for the time used for each design. The time allowed to complete an item varies from 20 sec (4 blocks) to 120 sec (16 blocks). The discontinue criterion is four successive scores of zero. Scores from the different items are added to form the rough score (minimum 0, maximum 68 points). The mean scaled score (adjusted for age) was the primary endpoint (Table 3). Secondary endpoints were the raw score and the percentage within the highest tertile of scaled scores.
During the prism adaptation task repetitive pointing of the arm to visual targets
seen with optical prisms normally induces a bias pointing in the opposite direction
following prism removal (Van der Geest et al., 2005; Werner et al., 2010; Krab et al.,
2011). Participants are seated in front of a digitalizing tablet (Intuos 4 XL DTP, Wacom
Europe GmbH, Krefeld, Germany) and a black dotted target is projected from above
by a see-through mirror, while their hand is visible. Putting an opaque plate below the
mirror blocks visual feedback of hand position, while the target is still visible through
the mirror (Supplementary gure 1C). The experiment consists of four phases (Fig. 7 2A). In all phases the subject has to move the pen a number of times from a starting
position at the bottom of the tablet towards the position of the target over a distance
of 20 cm. In phase one (practice) the subject has to move the pen towards the target
10 times, while they can see their hand (visual feedback). In phase two (pre-test) the
subject has to move the pen 10 times without visual feedback. In phase three (prism
exposure) the subject wears prism glasses that shift the visual world 10° to the right,
without visual feedback of the hand movement. Subjects have to move the pen 10
times to the target. In phase four (adaptation) they can see their hand again, so that
the position of hand and target can be visually (re-)aligned. Just before the nal phase
ve (post-test), the glasses are removed and subjects have to move the pen 10 times
without visual feedback. The average x-coordinate and y-coordinate of the endpoints
of the hand movements are calculated for each phase of the experiment for a single
participant (Table 4). Primary outcome was the shift in mean x-coordinates between
the post-test and pre-test phases (prism induced hand movement adaptation: phase
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