Research shows that dopamine levels fall during migraine attack

Washington: A recent study by the researchers of University of Michigan has shown that dopamine levels fall and fluctuate during the migraine attacks.

Using the PET scans of the brain, they showed that dopamine falls and fluctuates at different times during a migraine headache.

This discovery could help scientists better understand dopamine-based therapies for migraines as well as a patient’s behaviour during an attack.

Researcher Alex DaSilva said, the connection between dopamine and migraines has long been a poorly understood therapeutic and research area.

Dopamine is a chemical in the brain that helps regulate emotion, motivation and sensory perception.

Physicians and emergency rooms often give migraine patients dopamine antagonists, drugs that block overactive dopamine receptors, to level off wild dopamine fluctuations and ease migraine attacks.

DaSilva and colleagues took various measurements of brain activity and dopamine levels of eight migraine sufferers and eight healthy patients during migraine attacks and between headaches. They compared study participants to each other with and without headaches, and also migraineurs to healthy patients.

DaSilva said, when migraine patients were between headaches, their dopamine levels were as stable and even as the healthy patients,

But during an attack, the migraine patients’ dopamine levels fell significantly.

He said,“This dopamine reduction and fluctuation during the migraine attack is your brain telling you that something is not going well internally, and that you need time to heal by forcing you to slow down, go to a dark room and avoid any kind of stimulation”.

The study appears in the journal Neurology.

(With ANI Inputs)