Pathomechanisms

Migraine study with functional magnetic resonance imaging. © 2001 PNAS (cited from Hadjikhani et al., 2001)

Neural vs Vascular Theory of Migraine Aura

Whether migraine aura has a neural or vascular cause is a long-standing dispute in the literature of migraine pathology. Recent advances in neuroimaging techniques, such as positron emission tomography (PET), single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have augmented the growing clinical evidence that migraines are primarily driven from the brain (Cohen and Goadsby, 2006). [more]

Modelling Migraine Aura

Neural networks and nonlinear dynamics can help to explain what happens to the brain during an migarine with aura. It is hoped that computational neuroscience approaches provide new routes to migraine etiology and the gained knowledge helps us to develop novel strategies in migraine therapeutics (Dahlem and Chronicle, 2004). [more]

References

Cohen AS, Goadsby PJ. Functional neuroimaging of primary headache disorders. Expert Rev Neurother 2006; 6: 1159-1171.
Dahlem MA, Chronicle EP. Computational perspective on migraine aura. Prog Neurobiol 2004; 74: 351-361.
Hadjikhani N, Sanchez Del Rio M, Wu O, Schwartz D, Bakker D, Fischl B, Kwong KK, Cutrer FM, Rosen BR, Tootell RB, Sorensen AG, Moskowitz MA. Mechanisms of migraine aura revealed by functional MRI in human visual cortex. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2001; 98: 4687-4692.

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