The volume of the thalamus and hippocampus in a right-handed female episodic migraine group

Background/aimMigraine is a disabling headache with clinical and radiological complications. The aim of this study was to investigate the volume of the thalamus and hippocampus in migraineurs, the role of white matter lesions (WMLs), and the migraine characteristics in volume changes.MethodsBrain MRIs of 161 right-handed female episodic migraine patients and 40 right-handed, age-related, healthy women were performed. Left and right thalamus segmentation was performed on the 3D MPRAGE images using the Freesurfer 5.3 image analysis suite. Hippocampal subfield segmentation was based on a novel statistical atlas built primarily upon ultra-high-resolution ex vivo MRI data.ResultsThe left hippocampus had a smaller and the left thalamus had a larger total volume than the right one in both the control (p < 0.001) and migraine groups (p