A study conducted in Pennsylvania clears all your questions, as to what causes migraine…basically the adults suffering from migraine are more likely to have disrupted or incomplete network of arteries and veins supplying blood flow to the brain.
This essential research conducted by the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania has stated that variations in arterial anatomy are the main cause of asymmetries in cerebral blood flow that usually tend to contribute to the process triggering migraines.
The arterial supply of blood to the brain is secured by a series of connections between the major arteries. This is termed as the ‘circle of Willis’.
Generally people who have migraine problem, particularly migraine with aura, have more chances of missing components of the circle of Willis.
“People with migraine actually have differences in the structure of their blood vessels – this is something you are born with” said the study`s lead author, Brett Cucchiara , MD, Associate Professor of Neurology.
“These differences seem to be associated with changes in blood flow in the brain, and it`s possible that these changes may trigger migraine, which may explain why some people, for instance, notice that dehydration triggers their headaches,” Cucchiara added.
The study was done with 170 people from three groups – a control group with no headaches, those who had migraine with aura, and those who had migraine without aura – the team found that an incomplete circle of Willis was more common in people with migraine with aura (73 percent) and migraine without aura (67 percent), compared to a headache-free control group (51 percent).
The team used a magnetic resonance angiography to test blood vessel structure and a noninvasive magnetic resonance imaging method conducted at the University of Pennsylvania, called Arterial spin labelling (ASL), to measure changes in cerebral blood flow.
The study was published in journal PLOS ONE.
