Nine patients with migraine were recruited into our study. All patients received 20 cTBS sessions (bursts of 3 50-Hz TMS pulses at 200-ms intervals for 40 seconds), administered every weekday for 4 consecutive weeks. All patients kept headache diaries for 4 weeks before stimulation (baseline; T1), during stimulation (T2), and 4 weeks after stimulation (T3). The primary outcome measures were the changes of total headache and migraine days from baseline (Wilcoxon signed-rank test; T2 and T3 vs. T1).
The number of total headache days was reduced at T2 and T3 compared with T1 [9.4 ± 6.2 days (p = 0.024) and 8.7 ± 10.1 days (p = 0.012) vs. 13.4 ± 10.1 days]. The number of migraine days was also reduced at T2 and T3 compared with T1 [2.9 ± 2.7 days (p = 0.021) and 1.0 ± 1.6 days (p = 0.008) vs. 8.6 ± 8.7 days].
Our results indicate that cTBS on the primary motor cortex might reduce the number of total headache and migraine days in patients with migraine. However, large-scale randomized controlled trials are necessary to further validate the findings.