Skin temperature biofeedback and migraine headaches. A double-blind study.

To assess the relative contribution o f specific and nonspecific effects o f skin temperature biofeedback upon migraine headache, 11 migraine patients were taught to increase the temperature o f their hand. Training to decrease the skin temperature o f the hand served as a control for 12 other migraine patients. An additional 11 control subjects were not trained but kept records o f migraine activity. Under carefully controlled double-blind procedures, migraine patients who learned to raise finger temperatures showed statistically significant and clinically therapeutic improvement during a 6-week follow-up period. However, they were not significantly better than those trained to lower finger temperatures, those who did not meet a learning criterion, or those receiving no training. While these groups did show some significant improvement when compared to subjects who