Headaches are a disease that affects millions of people. A recent study explains what happens in the brain of migraine sufferers.
There are 37 million people who suffer from migraine each year, the phenomenon is three times greater in women. A new study has revealed that people who suffer from headaches have brains with physical changes. The scans showed that there were fluid-filled spaces surrounding blood vessels in the central regions of the brain. Chronic migraine sufferers may have problems with the part of the brain responsible for eliminating waste.
In people with chronic migraine and episodic migraine without aura, there are significant changes in the perivascular spaces of a region of the brain called the semioval center. The perivascular spaces are part of a fluid elimination system in the brain. Studying how they contribute to migraines could help us better understand the intricacies of how migraines occur.
Wilson Xu, a neurology researcher at the University of California who led the research
The study examined the brains of 25 healthy people between the ages of 25 and 60. Ten participants suffered from chronic headaches or debilitating migraines (lasting more than two weeks). Ten others suffered from episodic migraines (lasting less than two weeks a month). The two groups were then compared with five age-matched groups who did not have migraine.
All participants underwent a 7T scan with higher resolution images than magnetics. Eventually, the results found that migraine sufferers had fluid -filled pockets surrounding some blood vessels in organs (including the brain). Pockets were most common under the cerebral cortex. In short, patients who have chronic headaches have a different brain conformation than those who do not have migraine.
- This is what the brain of migraine sufferers looks like: Can scans reveal the cause of the headache? (greenme.it)
