Migraine-related differences in connectivity patterns during emotional audiovisual processing revealed by functional connectivity multivariate pattern analysis

Migraine is a complex neurobiological disorder characterized by recurrent headache attacks accompanied by sensory, cognitive, autonomic, and affective symptoms. Migraine has been associated with alterations in visual and auditory processing, as well as increased sensitivity to sensory stimuli both during and between attacks. Migraine has also been associated with increased sensitivity to the arousal and valence of emotional stimuli, though this relationship is not well understood. The present study investigates how migraine influences large-scale network interactions during complex emotional audiovisual processing. Functional magnetic resonance imaging data was collected from 22 migraineurs and 21 healthy controls during the passive viewing of three audiovisual films (negative valence/high arousal; positive valence/high arousal; neutral valence/low arousal). Functional connectivity multivariate pattern analysis (fc-MVPA) identified distributed connectivity patterns that differentiated the groups. During the negative valence, high-arousal condition, fc-MVPA identified a cluster in the superior lateral occipital cortex within the default mode network (DMN) that exhibited greater within-network connectivity in migraineurs relative to controls. Additional clusters located in the visual and attention networks showed differential whole-brain connectivity between groups, characterized by increased cross-network coupling with the attention, control, and visual networks in the migraine group. Further significant clusters were also identified within the control and limbic networks. These findings indicate that migraine-related network connectivity differences were observed during the negative valence/high arousal film condition, but not during the positive valence/high arousal or neutral valence/low arousal conditions. Taken together, these results suggest that migraine is associated with network-level differences during more true-to-life emotional processing.