Studies on Headache: Electroencephalographic Abnormalities in Patients with Vascular Headache of the Migraine Type

When electroencephalography is performed in a large number of patients who are examined for the complaint of headache, without reference to the types of headache, the number of abnormal records is not different from that found in a similar group of headache-free persons. Ulett, Evans, and O'Leary¹ reported the results of 1,000 tracings in patients with the chief complaint of headache. Of these 1,000 patients 15.8% were found to have abnormal records. Cohn² also studied the electroecephalogram of 1,000 patients with headache as a complaint and found less than 20% abnormal. When he compared this with a similar group of healthy persons without complaint of headache he found no significant difference in the total number of abnormal tracings. Both of these figures are about the same as those offered by Gibbs and Gibbs³ in the study of a large number of normal subjects. In the study of