Changes in speech occurred in almost half of individuals experiencing migraine attacks who were evaluated in a recent prospective, longitudinal, observational study. Participants provided speech samples 3 times per day using a speech elicitation tool included within a mobile app. Six complementary speech features that capture articulation and prosody were extracted from speech samples. Participants with migraine maintained a daily headache diary using the same app. A total of 56,767 speech samples were collected, including 43,102 from 15 individuals with migraine and 13,665 from matched healthy controls. They found:
- Significant group-level differences in speech features were identified between those with migraine and healthy controls and within the migraine group during the pre-attack vs attack vs interictal periods.
- Most consistently, speech changes occurred in the speaking rate, articulation rate and precision, and phonatory duration.
- Within-subject analysis revealed that 7 of 15 individuals with migraine showed significant change in at least 1 speech feature when comparing the migraine attack vs interictal phase and 4 showed similar changes when comparing the pre-attack vs interictal phases.
Schwedt TJ, Peplinski J, Garcia-Filion P, Berisha V. Altered speech with migraine attacks: A prospective, longitudinal study of episodic migraine without aura. [Published online ahead of print November 17, 2018]. Cephalalgia. doi:10.1177%2F0333102418815505.