RESEARCH ARTICLE
Migraine: An Overview
Salvatore Salomone1, Filippo Caraci2, Anna Capasso3, *
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2009Volume: 3
First Page: 64
Last Page: 71
Publisher ID: TONEUJ-3-64
DOI: 10.2174/1874205X00903010064
Article History:
Received Date: 21/11/2008Revision Received Date: 23/1/2009
Acceptance Date: 2/2/2009
Electronic publication date: 1/10/2009
Collection year: 2009
open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
The pathophysiology of migraine is not completely understood and continues to be investigated. The complexity of interactions taking place in the sensory neuronal network with the mediation of all different neurotransmitters involved ives the measure of the extreme difficulty connected with the knowledge of migraine pathogenesis and in particular of its cardinal sign. Neuronal components are relevant in migraine pathophysiology: there could be a generalized interictal abnormal excitability of the cerebral cortex in migraine, possibly favoring the occurrence of spreading depression with consequent activation of the trigeminal system. Many theories have been formulated in these last sixty years about the pathogenesis of migraine and other forms of primary headache, but the problem is still far to be fully clarified. The present review is focused on the description of different theories on the migraine pathogenesis.
