Oncogenic hyperactivation of the mitotic kinase Aurora-A (AurA) in cancer is associated with genomic instability. Increasing evidence indicates that AurA also regulates critical processes in normal interphase cells, but the source of such activity has been obscure. We report here that multiple stimuli causing release of Ca(2+) from intracellular endoplasmic reticulum stores rapidly and transien...

Migraine is a common clinical disorder, quite disabling and affecting the quality of life in majority of patients. The visual aura is the commonest among all types of aura. Various types of migraine aura described in the literature are photopsia, fortification spectra, scotoma, visual distortion, haemianopia and metamorphsia. The epileptic visual aura differs from aura associated with migraine ...

BACKGROUND Right to left shunting, usually caused by a patent foramen ovale (PFO), is associated with migraine and visual aura. It is unknown if patients who present with visual aura without headache behave similarly to those experiencing typical migraine headache with aura. The purpose of this study was to assess the prevalence of right to left shunting in patients who present with migraine au...

Migraine with aura is prevalent in high-altitude populations suggesting an association between migraine aura and hypoxia. We investigated whether experimental hypoxia triggers migraine and aura attacks in patients suffering from migraine with aura. We also investigated the metabolic and vascular response to hypoxia. In a randomized double-blind crossover study design, 15 migraine with aura pati...

The roles of the kinase Aurora A (AurA) in centrosome function and spindle assembly have been established in Drosophila, C. elegans, and Xenopus egg extracts . Recently, we have shown that AurA acts downstream of the RanGTPase signaling pathway to stimulate spindle assembly in mitosis . However, it is still not clear whether AurA can stimulate the formation of microtubule organizing centers (MT...

Visual disturbances in migraineurs, such as visual aura, are typically episodic, that is, associated with the headache attack, and overlaid by head pain and other symptoms that impact the patient. In some patients, however, visual symptoms are dominant due to frequency (migraine aura status), duration (persistent migraine aura and other persistent positive visual phenomena), or complexity (visu...

Migraine is a common episodic brain disorder characterized by recurrent attacks of disabling headache.(1) In one-third of patients, headache is preceded or accompanied by aura symptoms, which are transient and fully reversible hemispheric neurologic symptoms. In the absence of any objective marker, the diagnosis of migraine is clinical and based on the criteria proposed by the International Hea...

The classical visual aura of migraine is characterized by a unilateral hallucination, composed of a zigzag fortification pattern followed by a trailing scotoma. This pattern usually starts in central vision, expands and spreads to the periphery, and then disappears. We review a number of historical attempts to explain the migraine aura in terms of brain events, then summarize recent theories of...

Background and Purpose—Previous P–magnetic resonance spectroscopy (P-MRS) studies have shown that cerebral cortical energy metabolism is abnormal in migraine and that cortical energy reserves decrease with increasing severity and duration of aura. Migrainous infarction is a rare complication of migraine with aura, and its pathophysiology is poorly understood. We used P-MRS to determine whether ...

This study examined the efficacy of lamotrigine in the prevention of migraine aura. Fifty nine patients suffering from migraine with aura received lamotrigine in a controlled three year prospective open study. Treatment response was defined as a reduction of aura frequency each month by at least 50%. Primary endpoint was reached by three quarters of the patients. Lamotrigine significantly reduc...