By Maggie Fox, Health and Science
Editor
Sun Apr 29, 1:27 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - People with migraines also may be suffering
from some brain damage as brain cells swell and become starved of
oxygen -- a finding that may help explain why migraine sufferers
have a higher risk of stroke, researchers reported on Sunday.
Similar brain damage can occur with concussions and after strokes,
the researchers said in this week's issue of the journal Nature
Neuroscience.
They said their findings suggest that migraine sufferers should not
simply get pain relief but should take drugs that prevent the
migraine, which is often preceded by "aura" -- a series of visual
disturbances that can include flashes of light or black
spots.
The research, which was done in mice, also suggests giving oxygen
may help reduce the damage, said Takahiro Takano, Maiken Nedergaard
and colleagues at the University of Rochester in New York, working
with a team at the Danish pharmaceutical group Novo Nordisk.
They studied a process called cortical spreading depression, known
as CSD, a wave of changes in cells associated with migraine, stroke
and head trauma.
They used a precise two-photon microscopic and oxygen sensor
microelectrodes to look at the brains of live mice while they
caused this process.
They saw a swelling occur and the brain cells became starved of
oxygen. The nerve cells were damaged -- specifically the dendrites,
the long, thin spikes that stretch from one nerve cell to
another.
28 MILLION SUFFERERS IN U.S.
"This observation may have direct clinical implications, as several
lines of work support the notion that cortical spreading depression
constitutes the neurological basis of migraine with aura, and
spontaneous waves of CSD may contribute to secondary injury in
stroke and traumatic brain injury," the researchers wrote.
Migraine is a severe and debilitating form of headache, affecting
28 million people in the United States alone.
Two studies, including one published last week in the Archives in
Internal Medicine, show that people who have migraines are more
likely to have heart attacks.
A 2004 study in the British Medical Journal found that migraine
sufferers are twice as likely to suffer a stroke as people who do
not have the headaches.
Women are much more likely to suffer the characteristic pain of a
migraine.
Usual pain medication often has little effect on migraine but a
class of drugs called triptans, also called serotonin agonists, and
ergotamine drugs, can be used to prevent the worst effects if
patients take them at the first sign.
Giving the mice rich doses of oxygen seemed to shorten the duration
of the wave of brain effects seen in CSD, the researchers said.
They noted that migraine and cluster headache patients are
sometimes treated with high-pressure oxygen.
It is not clear if the effects of migraine are permanent, the
researchers said. Some studies have suggested they are while others
have shown no difference in memory and other cognitive effects in
migraine patients.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070429/hl_nm/migraines_dc;_ylt=Ar0rSq0.Jijpl8UjJTmlVAIDW7oF
