Migraine and the brain

The researchers have found that there are differences in the brain of people with migraine in connection with the treatment of sensory information, including the pain.

In previous studies, Harvard Medical School investigators used MRI imaging (MRI) to show the structural differences between the brains of people with and without migraines.

Specifically, the imaging showed thickening in an area of the brain associated with the treatment of the message called sensory somatosensory cortex (SSC).

It is not clear whether the migraine to changes in the brain, or if the brain differences cause headaches, researchers Nouchine Hadjikhani, MD, from the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging in the clinic of Massachusetts said WebMD.

“That is the big question,” she says. “A person can cortical born with these differences, it was susceptible to migraine late in life. But we do not know.”

Migraine and brain

In the image processing newly announced study, the researchers compared the brains of 24 people with migraine and 12 people without it. They noted that South-South cooperation was an average of about 21 percent more in migraineurs. The strength of the changes were particularly pronounced in the context of South-South cooperation in connection with the sense of the head and face.

Most of the participants in the study, with migraine headaches since childhood, and suggested that in the long term to promote the sense in the region of the brain lead structural changes, Hadjikhani said.

The study is on the 20th November online edition of the journal Neurology.

Other studies also showed differences in the thickness of the cortex in patients with multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s disease.

But it is also possible that the structural changes and migraine before and lead to happen.