Serene Branson, KCBS-TV reporter, who started slurring and became incomprehensible during a live Grammy coverage did so because she was suffering from a complex migraine, according to her physician Dr Neil Martin.

A complex migraine has symptoms similar to that of a stroke and can often mimic one said Martin, the chief of neurosurgery at the UCLA Medical Centre to The Los Angeles Times.

Branson, in an interview with her station on Thursday, said she knew something was wrong the moment she opened her mouth to speak and was terrified. She said, I started to get a really bad headache, but assumed I was just tired.”

“At around 10 o'clock that night I was sitting in the live truck with my field producer and the photographer and I was starting to look at some of my notes, I started to think, the words on the page are blurry and I could notice that my thoughts were not forming the way they normally do, she added.

Her lapse into gibberish on air went viral and there were speculations that she had suffered a mild stroke. She was examined by paramedics at the site and a stroke was ruled out but she was hospitalized and underwent some tests.

Branson is an Emmy-nominated reporter and though no date has been set for her return, the station posted a message for her well-wishers on Monday afternoon:

Serene thanks everyone for their concern and good wishes and hopes to be back on the air very soon.

Los Angeles Medicine Los Angeles