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Current Pain and Headache Reports
Published in: Current Pain and Headache Reports 1/2012

01-02-2012 | Chronic Daily Headache (SJ Wang, Section Editor)

Cortical Excitability in Chronic Migraine

Authors: Gianluca Coppola, Jean Schoenen

Published in: Current Pain and Headache Reports | Issue 1/2012

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Abstract

A proportion of episodic migraine patients experiences a progressive increase in attack frequency leading to chronic migraine (CM). The most frequent external factor that leads to headache chronification is medication overuse. The neurobiological bases of headache chronification and of the vicious circle of medication overconsumption are not completely elucidated. More recently, the same neurophysiological methods used to study episodic migraine were applied to CM and medication-overuse headache (MOH). Studies of cortical responsivity tend overall to indicate an increase in excitability, in particular of somatosensory and visual cortices, reflected by increased amplitude of evoked responses, decreased activity of inhibitory cortical interneurons reflected in the smaller magnetic suppression of perceptual accuracy, and, at least for visual responses, an increase in habituation. In MOH, overconsumption of triptans or NSAIDs influences cortical excitability differently. Generalized central sensitization is suggested to play an important role in the pathophysiology of headache chronification.
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Metadata
Title
Cortical Excitability in Chronic Migraine
Authors
Gianluca Coppola
Jean Schoenen
Publication date
01-02-2012
Publisher
Current Science Inc.
Published in
Current Pain and Headache Reports / Issue 1/2012
Print ISSN: 1531-3433
Electronic ISSN: 1534-3081
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11916-011-0231-1

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