Headache
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Migraine is a complex neurological disorder characterized by severe headaches associated with a plethora of sensory hypersensitivity and neurovegetative symptoms. In about one-third of the cases, a set of fully reversible focal neurological symptoms, the aura, accompanies the headache. In the last decades, advanced neuroimaging investigations allowed identification of structural, microstructural, and functional abnormalities characterizing the brain of patients with migraine with aura (MwA). However, mechanisms underlying the aura phenomena are still a matter of debate. ⋯ Although several advanced neuroimaging studies have been conducted to investigate the neural correlates of aura phenomena, they have failed in identifying underlying pathophysiological mechanisms in their entirety. Nevertheless, functional and structural neuroimaging findings concerning the extrastriate visual cortex are characterized by a high level of reproducibility, so much so that they could be applied, in a not so far future, as diagnostic, prognostic, or therapeutic biomarkers for MwA.