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The authors report a patient with migraine in whom they measured brain oxygenation indirectly during a visual aura by means of T2-weighted MRI. An aura of left homonomous quadrantanopia was accompanied by increased T2-weighted contrast intensity of bilateral regions in the occipital cortex, and the red nucleus and substantia nigra bilaterally. The mechanisms of these changes remain to be determined, but in this patient the migraine aura was associated with probable hyperoxia and not cerebal ischemia.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to map the hand sensorimotor area of hemiparetic adolescents and young adults who had suffered unilateral brain damage in the perinatal period. Unlike normal subjects, who exhibit cortical activation primarily contralateral to voluntary finger movements, the hemiparetic patients' intact hemispheres were equally activated by contralateral and ipsilateral finger movements. Our findings are consistent with previous clinical observations and animal experiments which suggest that the immature brain is able to reorganize in response to focal injury.