Background Calcitonin gene-related peptide provokes migraine attacks in 65% of patients with migraine without aura. Whether aggregation of migraine in first-degree relatives (family load) or a high number of risk-conferring single nucleotide polymorphisms contributes to migraine susceptibility to calcitonin gene-related peptide infusion in migraine patients is unknown. We hypothesized that gene...

Susceptibility to migraine is determined by genetic factors and is therefore subject to the forces of natural selection. Migraine is a common and ancient disorder whose prevalence may be increasing, suggesting that a migraine-prone nervous system may be associated with reproductive or survival advantages. Five evolutionary explanations are reviewed that might account for the persistence of migr...

Migraine headaches are common in children and adolescents, with a wide spectrum of clinical forms. The most frequent pattern in children is migraine without aura, characterized by attacks of frontal, pounding, nauseating headache lasting 1 to 72 hours. The spectrum of migraine with aura includes migraine with typical aura, hemiplegic migraine, and basilar-type migraine, all of which may manifes...

Objective To evaluate the association between migraine and cognitive decline among women. Design Prospective cohort study. SettingWomen’s Health Study, United States. Participants 6349 women aged 65 or older enrolled in the Women’s Health Study who provided information about migraine status at baseline and participated in cognitive testing during follow-up. Participants were classified into fou...

Migraine frequency is divided into episodic and chronic.2 Episodic migraine is characterized by <15 migraine days and chronic migraine by ≥15 headache days per month. Sometimes migraine may be described as chronic simply because the attacks recur over long periods of time. Chronic migraine affects 1.4 to 2.2 percent of adults.9 All migraine types significantly affect the physical, psychological...

No single model of migraine explains all of the known features of the disorder. Migraine has recently been characterized as an abnormality in pain-modulating circuits in the brainstem. The periaqueductal gray appears to have a critical role in migraine genesis and has been labeled the "migraine generator." The concept of a "pain matrix," rather than a specific locus of pain, is widely accepted ...

BACKGROUND The combination of vertigo, dizziness and balance disturbance with migraine is called vestibular migraine. Although it is estimated that up to 1% of the population suffers from this disease, it is still widely unknown and often underdiagnosed. Recently, the International Headache Society and the Báràny Society published the first joint document with mutually accepted diagnostic crite...