ReviewAIMS neuroscience2025
Dissecting the Circle of Willis-Migraine connection: A review.
Review in AIMS neuroscience, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Objective: Anatomical variations in the Circle of Willis (CoW) may mediate the prevalence of migraines with aura (MWA) and without aura (MWoA) in patients. The aim of this review is to describe and evaluate contrasting studies to clarify the current understanding of this association within the literature. Methods: A comprehensive search across PubMed, Google Scholar, and the Cochrane Library resulted in 10 relevant studies that met our selection criteria and examined the association between the CoW and migraine prevalence. Results: Conflicting results were reported across the prospective and retrospective studies, which varied among different populations and the inclusion classification of CoW variants. Studies that evaluated posterior CoW variations repeatedly reported differential associations between migraines with aura (MWA) and without aura (MWoA), thus revealing a significant association only with the former. Two mechanisms of actions were hypothesized to be attributed to such associations; one hypothesized a resultant cerebral hypovascularization, whilst the other emphasized the role of shear stress in associated small arteries. Discussion: While some studies reported significant associations between specific CoW variations and migraines, particularly with the posterior CoW variations and MWA, conflicting evidence emphasizes the necessity for further investigations to provide a greater understanding between CoW variations and different migraine subtypes. A consensus calls for future studies to include larger samples over various ethnic populations to overcome the biases encountered within the current field of literature.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.