Strange Visual Auras Could Hold the Key to Better Migraine Treatments

Martin Kaag Rasmussen, a neuroscientist at the University of Copenhagen, says research on auras may reveal new answers to the greatest riddle of migraines: How do painful headaches arise from the brain if it has no pain receptors?..

But auraswhich fMRI scans have indicated originate as a sort of rolling blackout within the brainsuggest information is getting through from the brain to the pain sensors in the peripheral nervous system, the nerves outside of the central nervous system that extend across the rest of the body..

Rasmussen is a coauthor of a study in mice published in July that found a tiny opening between the cerebrospinal fluid, a clear soup of nutrients that bathes the brain and spinal cord, and pain receptors in the jawa previously undetected point of contact where substances released in response to brain activity could activate the peripheral nervous system..

Past studies have proposed that migraine headaches occur when something in the cerebrospinal fluid indirectly activates nerves in the nearby meninges, the layers of membrane between the brain and the skull..

The researchers also sampled the cerebrospinal fluid and found more than 100 proteins that rose or fell in the aftermath of CSD, suggesting potential involvement in the pain of migraine..

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