“I do not think there is strong enough evidence to suggest migraine can cause seizure,” said Joanna Galindo, MD, a pediatric neurologist at OHSU. “On the other hand, migraine can be a symptom for a small portion of patients with epilepsy.”
While it’s not currently known whether a migraine attack can trigger seizures, there may be several factors at play.
Brain Activity
Because the brain activity is similar, it’s possible that one might make the other more likely.
“The changes of the migraine in the brain interact with the changes of seizure in the brain and perhaps trigger this sequence from migraine attack to a seizure attack,” Dr. Alexopoulos says.
Brain Region
Visual auras can actually make it easy to misdiagnose a seizure for migraine and vice versa. “In a small portion of pediatric patients, particularly [those] with childhood occipital visual epilepsy, about 25 percent may describe positive visual phenomena like seeing colors,” says Galindo.