Mysterious Changes Identified in The Brains of People Who Get Migraines - ScienceAlert

Using ultra-high-resolution MRI, researchers found that perivascular spaces – fluid-filled spaces around the brain's blood vessels – are unusually enlarged in patients who experience both chronic and episodic migraine.

"In people with chronic migraine and episodic migraine without aura, there are significant changes in the perivascular spaces of a brain region called the centrum semiovale," says medical scientist Wilson Xu of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

Xu and his colleagues were curious about the perivascular spaces in the centrum semiovale, the central region of brain white matter directly below the cerebral cortex.

He and his colleagues recruited 20 patients between the ages of 25 and 60 with migraine: 10 who experience chronic migraine without aura, and 10 who experience episodic migraine.

"To our knowledge, this is [the] first study using ultra-high-resolution MRI to study microvascular changes in the brain due to migraine, particularly in perivascular spaces," Xu explains.

The scans revealed that the perivascular spaces in the centrum semiovale of patients with migraine were significantly enlarged compared to the control group.