Benign Fasciculation Syndrome and Migraine Aura without Headache: Possible Rare Side Effects of the BNT162b2 mRNA Vaccine? A Case Report and a Potential Hypothesis

The BNT162b2 (Pfizer BioNTech) mRNA vaccine is an effective vaccine against COVID-19 infection. Here, we report an adverse event following immunization (AEFI) in a 48-year-old female patient who presented with fasciculations, migraine auras without headaches and in an increased discomfort of previously present palpitations, as well as excitation and insomnia. Her fasciculations were intermittently present until the time this paper was written, starting from the 6th day post-vaccination; they changed localization and frequency, but most commonly they were generalized, affecting almost all muscle groups. The patient also suffered from two incidents of migraine auras with visual kaleidoscope-like phenomena without headaches a few months after the vaccination. These symptoms were considered to be AEFI and no causal relation with the vaccine could be proven.

Have You Seen A Kaleidoscope? A Case of Visual Migraine Aura

This is a case of migraine, presenting with the interesting visual aura of a ‘kaleidoscope’: waves with flickering movements made up of a variety of colors (red, blue, green, yellow), commencing laterally and spreading superiorly in the visual field of the left eye. This description is quite similar to a fortification spectrum, which usually expands and spreads in a C-shape fashion over one side of the visual field. Several different possible pathophysiological explanation are shared as well as the common differential diagnoses. In the work up of a patient with visual aura migraine, a comprehensive and detailed history is important, together with the appropriate investigations, in order not to miss any serious syndromes, including stroke syndromes and epilepsy.

From “Transient Hemiopsia” to Migraine Aura

This paper outlines the historical development of the concept of the visual aura of migraine, from the first comprehensive published description by the physician Hubert Airy, in 1870. Airy’s description of the phenomenon he called “transient hemiopsia” became widely copied and highly influential as a consequence of the language and images that he used in his presentation. This paper outlines the subsequent development of theories of aura from the time of Airy’s publication to the first demonstration of spreading oligaemia by Lautitzen and Olesen in the 1980s.

Aura Mapping: Where Vision and Somatosensation Meet

While migraine auras are most frequently visual, somatosensory auras are also relatively common. Both are characterized by the spread of activation across a cortical region containing a spatial mapping of the sensory (retinal or skin) surface. When both aura types occur within a single migraine episode, they may offer an insight into the neural mechanism which underlies them. Could they both be initiated by a single neural event, or do the timing and laterality relationships between them demand multiple triggers? The observations reported here were carried out 25 years ago by a group of six individuals with migraine with aura. They timed, described and mapped their visual and somatosensory auras as they were in progress. Twenty-nine episode reports are summarized here. The temporal relationship between the onset of the two auras was quite variable within and across participants. Various forms of the cortical spreading depression hypothesis of migraine aura are evaluated in terms of whether they can account for the timing, pattern of symptom spread and laterality of the recorded auras.

Case Report: Migralepsy: The Two-Faced Janus of Neurology

We report three cases of pediatric patients suffering from migraine aura triggered seizures. This entity, also called migralepsy, still does not have a unique definition today. Migraine and epilepsy are both episodic neurological disorders with periods of interictal well-being; this is indicative of similar pathophysiological mechanisms, such as increased neuronal excitation and ion channel dysfunction. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the clinical and instrumental features of migralepsy through the description of three clinical cases in which the symptoms of the usual migraine aura developed into a generalized tonic–clonic or focal seizure.

Whole-exome sequencing reveals migraine associated novel functional variants

Background Migraine, as the 7th most disabling neurological multi-symptomatic disease condition and 26.9% prevalence in Saudi females lacks studies on SNPs for their relation with migraine aura. Methods This study was conducted on 40 Arab ancestry young female subjects, among whom 50% cases with migraine and remaining controls were used to identify the migraine associated novels genes and risk variants. After quality controls, 3365343 missense, frameshift, missense splice region variants and insertion-deletion (indels) polymorphisms were tested for association to migraine. Results Seventeen significant (p value 9.091×10− 05) functional variants in 12 genes (RETNLB, SCAI, ADH4, ESPL1, CPT2, FLG, PPP4R1, SERPINB5, ZNF66, ETAA1, EXO1 and CPA6) were migraine risk associated including a stop gained frameshift (-13-14*SX) variant in the gene RETNLB (rs5851607; p value 3.446×10− 06). Gene analysis revealed that half of the significant novel migraine risk genes expressed in temporal lobe (p-value 0.0058) of the cerebral cortex. Conclusions This first study in female (22.10 ± 3.63 years) migrainers is the first one exploring migraine risk variants in Arab ancestry.