Psychophysiological characteristics of headache patients

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Abstract
Migraine, muscle-contraction headache patients and non-headache controls were physiologically assessed during self-selected stressful and relaxing imagery in headache and non-headache states. Musculoskeletal (frontalis, bilateral temporalis), vascular (heart rate, bilateral temporal artery pulse volume) and autonomic (skin conductance response) measures failed to differentiate the groups on resting response levels, in both headache and non-headache states. Stressful imagery elicited greater reactivity than relaxing imagery in all 3 response systems, regardless of headache type. A group by condition interaction eventuated only for the electromyographic measures, indicating that the muscle-contraction patients were significantly more reactive during stressful imagery than migrainers and controls.