migraine

migraine, condition characterized by painful recurring headaches, sometimes with nausea and vomiting. Migraine typically recurs over a period lasting 4 to 72 hours and is often incapacitating. The primary type is migraine without aura (formerly called common migraine). This condition is commonly unilateral (affecting one side of the head), with severe throbbing or pulsating headache and nausea, vomiting, and sensitivity to light and sound.

Between 6 and 9 percent of men and about 17–18 percent of women have migraine. Approximately 2 percent of the global population suffers from chronic migraine. Prevalence of the condition peaks about the third or fourth decade of life for women and men.

In 2010 the World Health Organization ranked migraine as the 19th leading cause of medical-related disability in high-income countries. In the United States it was among the leading pain conditions causing missed days of work.

Discover how ordinary objects work, and expand your understanding of the familiar.

SIGN UP

" height="20" alt="HEW Logo">

Thank you for signing up!"

Back to homepage

By clicking "Sign Up", you consent to the Britannica Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

Britannica Quiz

A Visit with the Word Doctor: Medical Vocabulary Quiz

Causes and symptoms

Migraine usually begins in a person’s teens or early 20s; however, it can start at any age, even early childhood. When migraine begins after age 50, an underlying brain disease may be the cause. The predisposition to migraine is approximately 50 percent genetic. It is believed that the brains of persons with migraine have hyperexcitable neurophysiological responses, with an inability to normally suppress the electrical response to certain visual and auditory stimuli.

Migraine attacks may be triggered by a variety of factors. Stress, changes in weather, menstruation, and too much or too little sleep are the most common triggers. Although certain foods were once commonly thought to trigger migraine attacks, the results of multiple studies have cast doubt on that assertion.

The presentation of migraine symptoms among patients can vary widely. For example, one patient might have mild unilateral headache with nausea and none of the other symptoms, and another might have a severe throbbing bilateral headache without nausea but with light and sound sensitivity. The two headaches are both migraine but have few symptoms in common.

Many migraine sufferers experience a cluster of symptoms, or “prodrome,” hours before the onset of the migraine headache. The prodrome can consist of yawning, fluid retention, pallor, nausea, light sensitivity, or mood changes, including sadness or irritability. Attempts to treat the prodrome and avoid the ensuing migraine have met with limited success; only a small percentage of patients actually benefit from prodrome treatment. Pain and other symptoms of migraine can be exacerbated by physical activities.

Explore Britannica Premium!

The trusted destination for professionals, college students, and lifelong learners.

SUBSCRIBE

Migraine with aura

About 20 to 30 percent of persons with migraine occasionally experience migraine with aura. Migraine aura is caused by cortical spreading depression, a neuroelectrical process in which abnormal neural activity migrates slowly across the surface of the brain. The pain is caused by inflammation of the trigeminal nerve (the largest of the cranial nerves) in the head; the inflammation extends to the meninges (the membranous coverings) of the brain. The inflammatory process is mediated by neuropeptides, small proteins that facilitate communication between neurons.

The most common migraine aura is visual. A visual migraine aura typically develops over the course of 4 to 5 minutes and then lasts for up to 60 minutes. It has a positive component, with flashing, shimmering lights, and a negative component, with a dark or gray area of diminished vision. This experience generally enlarges over time and migrates across the visual field.

The second most common type of migraine aura is a sensory aura. This usually starts as tingling and numbness in the hand, which then spreads up the arm and jumps to the face. In some cases it may start in the face or elsewhere. Other sensory migraine auras may cause language disturbances, one-sided weakness, or vertigo (pronounced dizziness and the sensation that one’s surroundings are rotating).

Migraine aura is generally followed by a migraine headache. In some cases, however, the aura is concurrent with the headache. In other cases aura may be followed by a tension-type headache or even no headache at all. When aura without headache begins in older individuals and is not completely typical, it resembles a transient ischemic attack, in which a blood vessel supplying a part of the brain is blocked. This is a warning sign of stroke, and the person needs to be evaluated urgently in a hospital.

Migraine is usually an episodic disorder, with attacks occurring several times per year to several times per week, but it may transform or evolve into chronic migraine, which features a continuous, or almost continuous, headache. This evolution from episodic to daily headache may be facilitated by the overuse of prescription or over-the-counter pain-relieving medications.

Research has shown that patients with chronic migraine, with or without aura, are more likely than healthy persons or persons with episodic migraine to have congenital defects of the heart, such as patent foramen ovale or right-to-left shunt. These conditions, known as atrial septal defects, are characterized by a persistent hole in the partition (or septum) between the upper (atrial) chambers of the heart. The pathophysiological relationship between atrial septal defects and migraine is unclear. Septal defects can be repaired surgically.

Treatment

The treatment of migraine is divided into the treatment of individual attacks and the prevention of future attacks. When over-the-counter medications are inadequate, prescription medications, such as dihydroergotamine or a triptan (a medication developed specifically to treat migraine), are prescribed. Butalbital (a barbiturate) and opioid-containing medications (e.g., codeine) should be avoided or severely restricted, because they cause medication-overuse headache, which is difficult to treat. These drugs also may permanently damage the pain system, and they are addictive.

Preventive treatments are indicated for individuals with frequent migraine, which is generally agreed to be more than four headache days per month. Many preventive treatment options have been discovered by chance. For example, when migraine patients took medications such as certain antihypertensives (drugs that lower blood pressure), antidepressants, seizure medications, or neurotoxins (e.g., Botox) that were prescribed for other indications, they found that their headaches improved. Biofeedback and stress management are relatively effective preventive measures for migraine. Occasionally migraine symptoms are so severe and disabling that hospitalization is required.