Overview
- High surprisal events were linked to a 56% higher migraine risk within 12 hours and an 88% increase within 24 hours, according to the JAMA Network Open report.
- Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital researchers followed 109 adults with migraine from April 2021 to December 2024 using twice-daily electronic diaries.
- The team calculated a personalized surprisal score that captures how atypical a day's experiences are compared with an individual's usual patterns.
- Reported disruptions included excess food or alcohol, staying up late, stressful incidents, and unexpected good or bad news.
- The authors and outside experts suggest building surprisal into forecasting tools to personalize prevention, while noting limits such as self-reported data, a modest and mostly female sample, and the need for objective tracking and broader validation.