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Migraine Pathophysiology Video
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Video at a Glance
- Migraine headaches have a cluster of symptoms, including unilateral head pain, pain worsened by movement, nausea/vomiting, photo- or phonophobia, and pulsating sensations.
- People only need two of the five symptoms to have a migraine headache, and pain worsened by movement is almost always symptomatic of migraines.
- The current migraine theory is called the theory of cortical spreading depression, where a slow-moving wave of depolarization spreads across the surface of the cortex, down into the thalamus, through the brain stem, and up to the sensory cortex.
- That wave causes the primary cause of migraine pain, inflammation in the thalamus, and trigeminal nerve.
- Migraine headaches have four phases. They are the premonitory phase, the aura phase, the headache phase, and the post-ictal phase.
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