Contactless Camera-Based Home Measurement of Pre-Attack Physiology in Migraine: A Longitudinal Feasibility Study
Listed in
This article is not in any list yet, why not save it to one of your lists.Abstract
Aim
To develop and evaluate a contactless, camera-only method for measuring pre-attack physiology in migraine at home, and to assess its feasibility over four weeks.
Methods
In this longitudinal observational feasibility study, adults with a neurologist diagnosis of migraine used a browser-based, camera-only application on their own device three times daily for four weeks. The application derived heart rate and heart-rate variability from facial video, together with proxies for eyelid and mouth movement and blink rate, each referenced to a person-specific baseline. Measurements within twelve hours before a self-reported attack were compared with attack-free measurements using linear mixed models, and individual prediction was tested with leave-one-subject-out cross-validation. The complete analysis was independently re-implemented and reproduced.
Results
Nine of thirteen recruited participants completed the study and contributed 549 measurements, with high data completeness (547 reliable). Heart rate was higher in the twelve hours before an attack than in attack-free periods (66.0 versus 60.4 beats per minute), confirmed by a mixed model (plus 5.54 beats per minute) and unchanged after adjustment for stress; no other signal differed after correction. Individual-level prediction remained weak (best cross-validated area under the curve 0.58).
Conclusion
Contactless, camera-only measurement of pre-attack physiology at home is feasible and reproducible. A group-level rise in heart rate was demonstrable but did not translate into usable individual prediction, motivating a larger study with electrocardiographic validation.
