More often than not, there will be no music playing. I rarely have any music playing, but if I do, it’s my typical piano music or easy on my ears men singing acoustic music. There is no light in my darkroom, as the dark-out curtains in my living room upstairs have already been shut and you cannot see downstairs. I keep a type of cloth headband in the room so I can pop them into the freezer and put it over my eyes as I try to get some rest on those beds. When everything hurt and it feels like I can’t go on due to all sorts of neck, head, and body pain, I slip a blanket on the top and stretch my body out and let the orthopedic bed conform to the shape of my body. The next thing in the room I utilize is the large orthopedic beds that my pets use. This works like a dream and suggest anyone that heats up with migraine gets a cooling blanket. Sometimes I’ll put it under the weighted blanket or sometimes I’ll just use it to make a wrap for around my head, neck, and shoulders. Therapeutic targeting of SD and microembolic events, or potential causes thereof, will be promising for treatment of aura and may also prevent ischemic infarction in vulnerable brains.Īura CADASIL Cerebrovascular disease FHM Microcirculation Migraine Pericyte Spreading depolarization Stroke.The next thing that is always with me in the darkroom is a cooling blanket. Preclinical models suggest a key role for enhanced SD susceptibility and microembolization to explain both the occurrence of migraine attacks and the increased stroke risk in migraineurs. Indeed, recent imaging studies document an accelerated infarct progression with only little potentially salvageable brain tissue in acute stroke patients with a migraine history, suggesting an increased vulnerability towards cerebral ischemia. At the same time, studies suggest an increased incidence of coagulopathy, atrial fibrillation and patent foramen ovale among migraineurs, providing a possible path for microembolic induction of SD and, in rare instances, stroke in hyperexcitable brains. Migraine patients are at risk for particularly cardioembolic stroke. Recent epidemiologic and imaging studies suggest that these preclinical findings can be extrapolated to migraine patients. Pharmacological suppression of the genetically enhanced SD susceptibility normalizes the stroke phenotype in familial hemiplegic migraine mutant mice. The severe stroke phenotype can be explained by SD-related downstream events that exacerbate the metabolic mismatch, including pericyte contraction and neuroglial inflammation.
![migraine tiny piano migraine tiny piano](https://hips.hearstapps.com/ell.h-cdn.co/assets/16/21/640x868/gallery-1464204533-elle-migraines-pullquotes-2.jpg)
Migraine mutant mice also exhibit an increased frequency of ischemia-triggered SDs upon experimental stroke, associated with accelerated infarct growth and worse outcomes. Upon experimentally induced SD, these mice develop aura-like neurological symptoms, akin to patients with the respective mutations. Increased SD susceptibility has been demonstrated in migraine animal models, including transgenic mice carrying human mutations for the migraine-associated syndrome CADASIL and familial hemiplegic migraine (type 1 and 2). Spreading depolarization (SD), a slowly propagating wave of neuronal depolarization, is the electrophysiologic event underlying migraine aura and a known headache trigger. Preclinical models have provided us with possible mechanisms to explain the increased vulnerability of migraineurs' brains towards ischemia and suggest a key role for enhanced cerebral excitability and increased incidence of microembolic events.
![migraine tiny piano migraine tiny piano](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2021/05/04/gettyimages-1217199787-be06baed2667fc71ace0c4bdfb320bcdf904cb53.jpg)
Interestingly, stroke risk is highest for migraineurs who are young and otherwise healthy. Migraine, especially with aura, is a risk factor for both ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke.
![migraine tiny piano migraine tiny piano](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/bU4_KWOcJNM/maxresdefault.jpg)
Population-based studies have highlighted a close relationship between migraine and stroke.