Clinical Description
In migraine with aura, including familial hemiplegic migraine (FHM), the neurologic symptoms of aura are unequivocally localizable to the cerebral cortex or brain stem and include fully reversible visual disturbance (most common), sensory loss (e.g., numbness or paresthesias of the face or an extremity), and dysphasia (difficulty with speech), and for FHM must include motor involvement (e.g., hemiparesis [weakness of an extremity]):
Visual disturbances can include scotoma (blind spots), photopsia (flashing lights), fortification spectra (zigzag pattern), and diplopia (double vision).
Dysphasia usually occurs when hemiplegia is right-sided.
Hemiparesis (unilateral weakness), not necessarily hemiplegia (unilateral paralysis), occurs with at least one other symptom during FHM aura.
Some confusion and/or drowsiness may be present even without dysphasia. Impaired consciousness ranging from drowsiness to coma is well described in FHM [Terwindt et al 1998, Chabriat et al 2000, Vahedi et al 2000]. Intermittent confusion and psychosis have been reported [Feely et al 1982], including one probable family with CACNA1A-FHM and ataxia [Spranger et al 1999].
Neurologic deficits with hemiplegic migraine attacks can be prolonged for hours to days and may outlast the associated migrainous headache. Persistent attention and memory loss can last weeks to months [Kors et al 2003]. Permanent motor, sensory, language, or visual symptoms are extremely rare [Ducros et al 2001].
FHM is a rare and extreme phenotype of migraine with aura. The frequency of attacks ranges from one per day to fewer than five in a lifetime (mean: 2-3/year). Long attack-free intervals are often reported (range: 2-37 years). The frequency of FHM attacks tends to decrease with age. FHM attacks may be provoked by typical migraine triggers (e.g., foods, odors, exertion, stress), cerebral angiography, and minor head trauma.
The eventual neurologic outcome is often benign in the pure FHM group without interictal deficits (e.g., seizures/epilepsy, ataxia, nystagmus, cognitive impairment / learning disability).
Note: Cerebral infarction and death have rarely been associated with hemiplegic migraine and should instead raise the possibility of other disorders associated with migraine and stroke (see Differential Diagnosis).
Seizures are a recognized feature in those with FHM-related pathogenic variants, which reflects much clinical and mechanistic overlap between epilepsy and migraine. Seizures during severe attacks have been reported in some families with ATP1A2-FHM along with coma and encephalopathy [Echenne et al 1999, Deprez et al 2008]. Focal seizures during severe attacks have been described in two individuals with simplex CACNA1A-FHM [Chabriat et al 2000], including one with severe intellectual disability, congenital ataxia, and early cerebellar atrophy [Vahedi et al 2000]. De novo
CACNA1A pathogenic variants are a common cause of epileptic encephalopathy [Allen et al 2016], and epileptic encephalopathy may be the presenting phenotype in an individual who develops CACNA1A-FHM. Heterozygous PRRT2 pathogenic variants are a major cause of childhood seizures, including self-limited (familial) infantile epilepsy (SeLIE; formerly known as benign familial infantile seizures) and paroxysmal kinesigenic dyskinesia with infantile convulsions (PKD/IC; formerly known as infantile convulsions and choreoathetosis) [Heron et al 2012, Schubert et al 2012, Becker et al 2013].
Paroxysmal movement disorders. Paroxysmal kinesigenic dyskinesia has been reported in individuals with a PRRT2 pathogenic variant with or without presence of hemiplegic migraine (see PRRT2-Related Disorder).
Imaging studies. There are no pathognomonic neuroradiographic findings for FHM. The only abnormalities observed on traditional imaging studies are vermian cerebellar atrophy in some families with CACNA1A-FHM [Battistini et al 1999]. Rare ictal studies demonstrated transient diffusion-weighted signal changes on brain MRI, suggesting cytotoxic edema during severe prolonged attacks in individuals with CACNA1A-FHM [Chabriat et al 2000, Vahedi et al 2000], with hemispheric cerebral atrophy usually contralateral to the hemiparesis [Hayashi et al 1998, Chabriat et al 2000, Vahedi et al 2000].
Abnormalities in the cerebellum on magnetic resonance spectroscopy have been reported [Dichgans et al 2005].
Phenotype Correlations by Gene
CACNA1A. Compared to families without an identified FHM-related pathogenic variant, families with CACNA1A-FHM have a higher incidence of cerebellar signs ranging from nystagmus to progressive ataxia, which occurs in up to 40%-50% of families with CACNA1A-FHM [Ducros et al 2000]; within such families, up to 60% of affected individuals have permanent cerebellar signs [Ducros et al 2001].
Those with identified FHM-related pathogenic variants tend to present with earlier age of onset, more severe symptoms, and associated interictal symptoms and signs (nystagmus, episodic or progressive ataxia, learning disability, epilepsy). In the report of Ducros et al [2001], the attacks started at a young age in the majority of individuals with CACNA1A-FHM (mean: 11.7±8 years; range: 1-51 years). Findings from subsequent series confirmed the observation of early age of onset and more severe attacks in those with FHM-related pathogenic variants compared to those with FHM and no pathogenic variant identified [Hiekkala et al 2018, Pelzer et al 2018].