( tment receive such treatment. Doctors a...)Mice with a migraine show signs of brain damage

The work puts the visual disturbances known as auras that many migraine sufferers report in a different light. The aura that precedes the headaches for at least one out of four migraine sufferers might involve floating black spots, flashing light, or some other visual changes. Nedergaard says those disturbances might actually be a visual sign that parts of the brain are short of oxygen.

In the work described in Nature Neuroscience, Nedergaard studied a phenomenon known as cortical spreading depression, or CSD. The process is now considered by many scientists as the basis for some migraines, particularly those involving an aura. CSD is an electrical event that initially involves a burst of intense activity among the neurons on the surface of the brain, followed by a gradually spreading wave of suppressed brain cell activity.

Many scientists believe that the phenomenon contributes to injury from stroke and from traumatic brain injury as well as migraine.

While it’s been widely recognized that CSD underlies some migraines, Nedergaard’s team linked the phenomenon for the first time to both severe hypoxia and to damage to brain cells. As a result of CSD, the team found changes to the synapses, the connections between brain cells known as neurons. The team observed that nerve cells swell and begin to disintegrate, with neurons shedding important connections known as dendritic spines ?the tiny extensions of an individual neuron’s body that usually number in the thousands within a synapse. Mice in the grasp of a migraine lost up to three-quarters of these important cellular components.

Ironically, the team found that during CSD, even though blood flow in the brain overall increases dramatically, some parts of the brain still suffer from a lack of oxygen.

The problem begins as the brai
'"/>

Source:University of Rochester Medical Center