Migraine headaches are among the most common headache disorders seen in various practices. The prevalence of migraine headaches is 18% in women and 6% in men. While millions of Americans suffer from migraine headaches, roughly 3%-13% of identified migraine patients are on preventive therapy, while an estimated 38% actually need a preventive agent. The challenge among physicians is not only when...

INTRODUCTION People with migraine often report being osmophobic, both during and between acute migraine attacks. It is not clear, however, whether such reports are associated with changes in olfaction such as hyperosmia, as measured by psychophysical testing. In this case-control study we quantitatively assessed olfactory identification ability, which correlates with threshold tests of olfactor...

OBJECTIVE Recurrent headaches and ADHD are prevalent in the pediatric population. Herein, we assess if ADHD is comorbid to headaches overall, to headache subtypes (e.g., migraine), and to headache frequency. METHOD Informed consent and analyzable data were obtained for 5,671 children aged 5 to 12 years (65.9% of the target sample). Parents and teachers were interviewed using validated questio...

Both the kynurenine and the endocannabinoid systems are involved in several neurological disorders, such as migraine and there are increasing number of reports demonstrating that there are interactions of two systems. Although their cooperation has not yet been implicated in migraine, there are reports suggesting this possibility. Additionally, the individual role of the endocannabinoid and kyn...

OBJECTIVE There is emerging evidence from clinical and community samples to suggest that migraines are associated with mental disorders. The present study utilized a large population-based sample to investigate the association between physician-diagnosed migraine and mental disorders. METHOD Data were from the German Health Survey conducted between 1997 and 1999 (N=4181, response rate 61.4%, ...

The aim of this study was to evaluate and define the triggers of the acute migraine attack. Patients rated triggers on a 0-3 scale for the average headache. Demographics, prodrome, aura, headache characteristics, postdrome, medication responsiveness, acute and chronic disability, sleep characteristics and social and personal characteristics were also recorded. One thousand two hundred and seven...

Migraine is a primary headache disorder which has received little attention from health care policies and physicians. This has led to ineffective management and more suffering to the patients and society. Migraine per se is a disabling disease which has its impact on the patient, family and work. It is associated with high incidence of psychiatric co-morbidities, especially depression and anxie...

BACKGROUND A pilot survey of 94 neurologists attending a continuing medical education meeting was performed to assess whether neurologists like to treat headaches and other common disorders and evaluate their personal prevalence of the disorders. METHODS Physicians were asked to respond to the following statement using a 5-point Likert scale (from 1, strongly disagree to 5, strongly agree): "...

In the ongoing debate about migraine pathogenesis it is crucial whether vascular factors are of primary importance or the blood vessels are just ‘bystanders’. In Edward Liveing’s the first monograph on migraine entitled ‘On Megrim, Sick-headache, and Some Allied Disorders: A Contribution to the Pathology of Nerve-Storms’ (1) he proposed the neural theory of migraine, ascribing the problem to ‘d...

Channelopathies are a heterogeneous group of neurological disorders resulting from dysfunction of ion channels located in cell membranes and organelles. The clinical scenario is broad and symptoms such as generalized epilepsy (with or without fever), migraine (with or without aura), episodic ataxia and periodic muscle paralysis are some of the best known consequences of gain- or loss-of-functio...