Research: – Amazing results for migraine

Research: - Amazing results for migraine

Scientists may have just found a major new piece of evidence that could help solve the migraine mystery.

This was reported by the professional magazine Neuroscience News.

They have discovered that the so-called perivascular spaces of the brain are unusually large in patients suffering from migraine.

These changes had not been discussed before, says Wilson Shaw, lead author of the new migraine study.

It hits a lot

Currently, the underlying cause of migraines is not known.

In Norway, 15 percent of women and 7 percent of men suffer from the disease pocket doctor.

Migraine site Migraines It states that there are about a billion people in the world who suffer from migraines.

Primary pain: According to Lommelegen, migraine attacks can last anywhere from 4 to 72 hours if not treated with medication.  Image: shutterstock

Primary pain: According to Lommelegen, migraine attacks can last anywhere from 4 to 72 hours if not treated with medication. Image: shutterstock
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better treatment

Migraine medications focus on the prevention or acute treatment of attacks.

Which medications you get can depend on how often you get migraines, how severe your attacks are, and what other medications you’re taking or other illnesses you have.

Shaw believes this startling discovery could lead to new and better ways to treat migraines.

Amazing changes

Shaw is a doctoral fellow at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

During the study, he and his colleagues used a new 7T MRI machine.

The machine can take MRI images with what the researchers call extremely high resolution.

In this way, they can study microscopic changes in the brain.

– In people with chronic migraines and migraine attacks without aura, significant changes occur in the perivascular spaces of the white matter, says Xu.

LEAD AN: Wilson Shaw Doctoral Fellow at USC in Los Angeles.  Photo: RSNA/Wilson Xu

LEAD AN: Wilson Shaw Doctoral Fellow at USC in Los Angeles. Photo: RSNA/Wilson Xu
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Perivascular spaces are fluid-filled pockets located near blood vessels in the body, including the brain.

White matter is the part of the nervous system that contains nerve fibers from neurons in the brain and spinal cord, according to Large Norwegian Encyclopedia.

Larger: arrows on the MRI image on the left show enlarged perivascular spaces in a patient with chronic migraine.  The MRI image on the right shows the brain of a person without migraine.  Photo: RSNA/Wilson Xu

Larger: arrows on the MRI image on the left show enlarged perivascular spaces in a patient with chronic migraine. The MRI image on the right shows the brain of a person without migraine. Photo: RSNA/Wilson Xu
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It affects both types

25 people participated in the study.

Ten of them had chronic migraine, and ten had migraine attacks without aura. Five healthy people were in the control group.

All participants ranged in age from 25 to 60 years, and were in good health.

All participants in both migraine groups had enlarged spaces around the blood vessels.

associated with dementia

In 2020, a report was published in the peer-reviewed medical journal Journal of the American Heart Association.

There it turned out that enlarged spaces around blood vessels can be associated with various neurological diseases, such as dementia.

The researchers believe this new finding indicates that migraine patients suffer from a glymphatic disorder in the brain.

It is known that the brain’s glymphatic system uses perivascular spaces and channels to “cleanse” the brain.

He says that studying how enlarged spaces contribute to migraines can help us better understand the complexity of how migraines occur.

Search further

Wilson Shaw hopes his study will inspire other researchers.

“The results of our study can help inspire larger future studies, so we can continue to investigate how changes in the brain’s microvasculature and blood supply contribute to different types of migraine,” he says, and concludes:

This could help us develop new, customized ways to diagnose and treat migraines.

All of the study results will be presented next week at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), Shaw says.

By Bond Robertson

"Organizer. Social media geek. General communicator. Bacon scholar. Proud pop culture trailblazer."