Migraine Science Archive

This new study compared 84 people hospitalized in Japan with reversible cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome, splitting them by whether their scans showed narrowed arteries, and found no meaningful difference in anything: same age, same thunderclap headache pattern, same treatment, same recovery. Close to 60 percent of both groups had a history of migraine, and a normal angiogram does not rule the syndrome out.

This new trial put 40 adults in Iran through either ten hour-long hypnotherapy sessions or a waiting list, and found lower pain scores and fewer migraine symptoms in the hypnotherapy group. A waiting list controls for none of what attention and expectation contribute, and 40 people split across three migraine subtypes leaves very little to work with.

This new cohort followed nearly 60,000 Dutch nurses and found that having ever worked shifts went with about 13 percent higher odds of migraine six years later. The link with headache in general faded once sleep problems were accounted for, and currently working shifts showed no consistent association at all.

Anti-nausea drugs are routine in migraine care, and this new review sorts them by how far they stretch the heart's electrical cycle. Ondansetron carried a much stronger signal than the alternatives, enough that the FDA pulled its highest intravenous dose back in 2012, while palonosetron barely registered.

This new study tested two cheap blood-count markers across 100 people with vestibular migraine, 100 with Meniere disease and 100 with neither, and found nothing. No difference between groups, and no link to attack frequency or disability. A useful negative, given both keep being floated as shortcuts.

Atogepant is the first CGRP drug to report positive results in menstrual migraine, though the effect is small AbbVie announced that its phase 3 LUNA trial met its primary endpoint. 468 women took atogepant (Qulipta) for seven days per cycle, starting three days before menstruation began. Perimenstrual migraine days fell by 1.20 compared with 0.40 on placebo. The difference works out at 0.80 days per cycle, and this is a company press release rather than a published paper.

This new study worked through what was causing dizziness in 519 children and teenagers at a specialist center and found vestibular migraine at the top of the list at 41 percent, ahead of functional dizziness at 18 percent. About a quarter had something rarer, including brain tumors, so the authors set out which signs point where, aiming to spare children unnecessary scans.

This new pooled analysis of 12 studies and 658 people found ultrasound-guided greater occipital nerve blocks cut monthly headache days by about 9 and pain scores by 3.5 points, with injections closer to the spine doing better. Those are very large numbers and the studies varied enormously, so treat the size with caution.

This new survey of 509 women with migraine found that those on stable hormonal treatment, whether the combined pill, a progestogen-only pill or a hormonal coil, had much the same migraine pattern and preventive use as those on none. Among women still cycling regularly, 86 percent had menstrually-related migraine.

People who have already had a stroke or heart trouble were kept out of the CGRP antibody trials. This new registry report follows the 17 such patients at one Swiss center across 31 patient-years and records no new strokes, no worsening heart disease and no fresh lesions, while 76 percent halved their migraine days. Seventeen people is far too few to call anything safe.

This new analysis of US health records matched 431,492 people who had neck manipulation from a chiropractor against the same number prescribed ibuprofen, all seeking care for new neck pain or headache, and found no increase in torn neck arteries in the following 30 days. It ran in a chiropractic journal, and the authors' own checks for hidden bias did not fully rule it out.

When the German Migraine and Headache Society's diary app stopped sending its daily reminder for two weeks because of a technical fault, its 4,236 users logged 11 percent fewer entries, took nearly 50 percent longer to fill them in, and dropped out at a higher rate. Everything went back to normal once reminders returned.

This new review works through what actually causes light sensitivity, from eye conditions to migraine, meningitis and head injury, and traces the wiring: light-sensing cells in the retina that play no part in vision, feeding into the trigeminal pain pathway and up through the thalamus.

Vestibular Rehabilitation for Vestibular Migraine: What 7 Studies Show Seven studies and 272 adults with vestibular migraine show a pooled 23.97 point drop in dizziness handicap after vestibular rehabilitation, above the usual threshold for clinical meaningfulness. Balance confidence did not improve as much, and the heterogeneity between studies was very high.

This new pooled analysis of 12 studies and 3,603 people found depression and anxiety scores fell consistently while people were on CGRP-targeted migraine prevention, on every rating scale used, with the improvement tracking how well the migraine responded. Almost none of it was placebo-controlled, so whether the drugs lift mood directly or fewer attacks do it is still open.

This new study followed 27,074 Japanese children and teenagers with migraine through a claims database and found about 5 percent crossed into overprescription of anti-inflammatories within five years, teenagers more than twice as often as younger children. Only a small fraction were still filling anything a year later.

This new pooled analysis of 16 studies found lasmiditan (Reyvow), the one acute migraine drug that does not narrow blood vessels, roughly doubled the odds of being pain free at two hours with no vasoconstrictive heart events across 5,126 participants. The awkward part: the maker has since withdrawn it for commercial reasons rather than safety ones.

Taiwan's headache society updated its acute migraine guideline for the first time since 2022, naming rimegepant (Nurtec ODT) a first-line option for people who cannot take triptans or are heading towards medication overuse, restating the two-days-a-week ceiling on acute medicines, and ruling out opioids beyond limited oral tramadol.

This new review sets out how to take a history for a spinal fluid leak, a condition regularly mistaken for migraine, and flags chronic migraine that has not responded to multiple treatments as a reason to reconsider the diagnosis. Normal brain imaging does not rule a leak out.

This new trial split 20 people with migraine without aura between a month of acupuncture at a single point on the foot and needling at non-acupoints, and found larger drops in pain scores in the real acupuncture group. Twenty people is far too few to settle anything.

This new real-world study tracked 2,169 migraine attacks treated with rimegepant (Nurtec ODT) and found meaningful pain relief within two hours in 61 percent, against 50 percent for the other acute medicines the same people used, holding up across every type of preventive. Attacks were self-reported through an app and the study was funded by the drug's maker.

This new study asked 109 people at a dizziness clinic what set their symptoms off and what they did about it, and found the workarounds tracked the diagnosis: reading while traveling pointed to vestibular migraine, visually busy environments to persistent postural-perceptual dizziness, and head movements to BPPV.

This new multicenter study built a two-part scorecard, monthly acute medication days plus a six-item questionnaire, to flag who is carrying a heavy migraine burden. Across 1,161 patients it separated high from low burden well, with an area under the curve of 0.87 in external validation, though it overestimated risk until recalibrated.

This new study imaged the retinas of 54 people newly diagnosed with migraine and 55 without, and found lower blood vessel density on every measure in the migraine group, with those who had aura affected most. A single snapshot, so it cannot say whether the difference comes before migraine or after.

England is adding migraine to the list of conditions a pharmacist can treat without a GP NHS England announced that migraine will be one of five new conditions treatable at a high street pharmacy, alongside acne, scabies, ear infections and rhinitis. The pathway covers low frequency episodic migraine in adults only, and starts in autumn at the small number of pharmacies employing a pharmacist with a prescribing qualification.

This new meta-analysis of four randomized trials and 1,764 people found that fremanezumab (Ajovy) left someone about 80 percent more likely to halve their monthly migraine days than placebo, and cut about 2 migraine days a month on top of that, with side effects tracking placebo apart from hardening at the injection site.

This new study followed 151 people with headache through three phases of the pandemic and found that nocebo-prone behavior, the tendency to expect a side effect and then get it, fell from 17 percent during lockdown to 9 percent once restrictions lifted, tracking with anxiety and with how many headache days someone had.

This new network meta-analysis of 14 trials and 791 people found probiotics cut the most migraine days, about 2.6 a month against placebo, with coenzyme Q10 and vitamins close behind, while magnesium did not reduce frequency but was the only one that lowered attack severity.

This new meta-analysis of seven studies and 272 adults with vestibular migraine found that vestibular rehabilitation cut dizziness handicap scores by about 24 points, a clinically meaningful drop, though balance confidence did not improve meaningfully and the authors grade the evidence low to moderate quality.

This new cohort of 470 people with vestibular migraine or probable vestibular migraine found 40 percent had some hearing loss and 88 percent had abnormal eye movement testing, with no meaningful difference between the two diagnoses.

Botox for Chronic Migraine: What 479 Real-World Patients Show A multicenter study followed 479 people with chronic migraine through three rounds of Botox over nine months. The post walks through what happened to their headache days, how many halved them, and what became of the medication overuse.

This new study took 413 hormone samples across 87 menstrual cycles in 46 women and found that those with menstrual migraine had a 49 percent higher peak estradiol in the luteal phase and a 90 percent steeper drop as the period approached, pointing at the size of the fall rather than the level itself.

This new review looked for sex differences in CGRP and its receptor, the target of the newer migraine drugs, and found only a handful of small studies with contradictory results, so the common assumption that this pathway simply works differently in women is not yet settled by the evidence.

This new review gathers imaging and electrophysiology work into a model of migraine as a cycling brain state rather than a single event, with raised cortical excitability between attacks, hypothalamic changes in the hours before one, and pain network amplification during it.

This new study of 20 people with vestibular migraine triggered attacks with intravenous nitroglycerin and found vestibular symptoms in 14 of them but no measurable group-level change in eye movement, while half reported visual symptoms and six had Alice in Wonderland type distortions.

This new systematic review of 19 studies found that research on status migrainosus, an attack lasting more than 72 hours, defines the condition inconsistently, with only 13 of them naming which edition of the diagnostic criteria they used.

This new modeling study behind the label for zavegepant nasal spray found that common CYP3A and P-glycoprotein drugs should not meaningfully change how much of it reaches the blood, but drugs blocking the OATP1B3 and NTCP liver transporters could roughly double it.

This new meta-analysis of five randomized trials and 258 adults found that osteopathic manipulative treatment cut 0.38 more monthly migraine days than control, but the individual trials disagreed with each other so severely that the authors say the pooled number cannot be generalized.

This new study of 230 Norwegian 15-year-olds found that those with an untreated vision problem were more likely to meet migraine criteria, 20 percent versus 8 percent, and that teens classified with migraine more often had trouble with eye teaming and focusing up close.

This new study of 320 people found that among those with migraine and no major vascular risk factors, white matter spots on MRI went with longer disease duration, more monthly headache days, higher CRP and a worse cholesterol ratio.

A machine learning model spotted migraine without being told anything about the headache Norwegian researchers trained a model on health and lifestyle data from 43,197 people, leaving out headache symptoms, and it still separated migraine from headache-free controls with an area under the curve of 0.80. Asked to find natural groupings, it split the migraine cluster into four subgroups: one entirely men, one dominated by neck pain, one with musculoskeletal pain alongside anxiety and depression, and one resembling classic migraine with aura.

This new survey of 103 US adults with migraine found that perceived stress accounted for part of the link between migraine stigma and disability during attacks, while pain catastrophizing accounted for part of it between attacks, though a one-time survey cannot show which comes first.

This new study built and tested a four-item migraine severity score with the European Migraine and Headache Alliance across 874 patients in Spanish and English, and found that how reliably acute treatment works was the main factor separating it from HIT-6 and MIDAS.

This new imaging study of 71 people with migraine and 31 without found that an indirect marker of brain fluid clearance was lower in high-frequency episodic migraine than in low-frequency migraine and tracked with attack frequency, though what that means in practice is still unclear.

This new study of 181 people with vestibular migraine found that about a quarter had reduced inner ear function on caloric testing, and that group reported more spinning and external vertigo, while a history of motion sickness and a family history of migraine were more common in those with normal results.

This new analysis of Global Burden of Disease data across 204 countries found that migraine and tension-type headache prevalence barely moved between 1990 and 2021, but years lived with disability rose sharply, with the heaviest burden falling on young and middle-aged women.

This new real-world study of 11,023 people in Türkiye found that fewer than half carried a formal migraine diagnosis code despite receiving migraine treatment, most preventive prescriptions were antidepressants or beta blockers, and only 3.4 percent received a CGRP antibody.

This new national analysis found that only 0.6 percent of people in Italy received a prescribed migraine drug in 2023, triptans still accounted for 75 percent of use, and CGRP antibodies reached 35 percent of spending within four years of launch.

This new randomized trial of 55 adults found that a brief online CBT exercise reduced catastrophic thinking about pain more than a control task, though the gap faded by six weeks, and falling catastrophizing tracked with less migraine-related disability.

The New Migraine Prevention Guideline: What the AAN and AHS Recommend The joint practice guideline on migraine prevention in adults runs to 17 recommendations and 52 statements. It names no single best drug, and instead gives four separate lists depending on whether efficacy, tolerability, long-term safety or cost is the priority.

This new systematic review of 217 trials found high-confidence evidence for several CGRP antibodies and Botox in migraine prevention, but direct comparisons between active treatments were too limited to say which works best.

This new randomized trial of 279 adults found that 12 weeks of app-based biofeedback cut monthly migraine days by 0.9 more than a waitlist and modestly improved quality of life, with nine mild device-related adverse events.

This new prospective cohort study found that adding platelet-rich plasma to lidocaine for stellate ganglion block cut 1.84 more monthly headache days at one month than lidocaine alone, but treatment was not randomized and needs confirmation.

This new real-world study found that 152 people receiving CGRP antibodies reported less work-related disability by three months, alongside fewer migraine days and acute medicines, but there was no untreated comparison group.

AAN and American Headache Society update migraine prevention guidance for the first time since 2012 The guideline says prevention should be offered at four or more migraine days a month, four or more moderate to severe headache days a month, or when migraine disrupts work or daily tasks. It also covers choosing treatment around pregnancy, medication overuse, age and other health conditions.

Migraine Research News: The Best Place to Follow New Migraine Studies Daily Migraine research moves every week and almost none of it reaches the people who have migraine. Today in Migraine Science is a free page, updated daily, that summarizes the newest migraine studies in plain language and links every entry straight to the source.

This new clinical review found that migraine with or without aura is the most commonly reported headache in inherited blood vessel conditions such as CADASIL and MELAS, and that several standard migraine preventives need extra caution in this group.

This new meta-analysis of eight studies found that chocolate is a self-reported trigger for about 14 percent of people with migraine, caffeine for 12 percent and cheese for 8 percent, so blanket avoidance is not supported and a headache diary is the better guide.

This new retrospective cohort of 196 people found that erenumab worked about as well in those who had failed only one previous preventive as in those who had failed two to six, with 36 percent versus 31 percent halving their headache days.

This new multicenter study of 479 people with chronic migraine found that after three rounds of Botox over nine months, monthly headache days fell by about 6, roughly a quarter halved their headache days, and 42 percent of those with medication overuse headache no longer met the criteria.

This new real-world study of 453 adults on CGRP antibodies found that all four drugs cut migraine days and disability durably over 12 months, with response no different in people over 50, and only modest differences between the individual antibodies.

FDA authorizes the first lens for migraine light sensitivity, but the trial behind it missed its main goal Avulux announced on August 24, 2026 that its light-filtering lenses received FDA De Novo authorization, creating the first recognized device category for migraine-associated light sensitivity. The supporting trial of 78 adults did not meet its primary endpoint of pain relief at two hours, or the four-hour secondary endpoint, and the positive findings came from post-hoc analyses.

This new randomized trial found that in 187 people with migraine, treating both greater occipital nerves with pulsed radiofrequency beat treating just one, with 77 percent halving their monthly headache days at six months versus 55 percent, and no procedure complications.

This new real-world study found that in 47 people with medication overuse headache, pairing a structured medication taper with a CGRP antibody left 85 percent with at least half their migraine days gone at six months, though there was no comparison group.

This new systematic review of 555 pregnancies exposed to onabotulinumtoxinA found that 80 percent ended in full-term births, with miscarriage and birth defect rates in line with the general population, and no adverse events among 94 breastfed infants followed to one year.

This new prospective cohort of 400 pregnant women with existing migraine found that worsening migraine tracked with pregnancy complications and fetal growth problems at first glance, but that link disappeared once blood pressure and weight gain were accounted for.

This new phase 2/3 randomized trial found that daily oral zavegepant barely beat placebo for chronic migraine prevention in 522 adults, cutting 1.4 more migraine days a month at 100 mg and showing no clear benefit at 200 mg.

This new laboratory pilot study found that onabotulinumtoxinA was not detectable on the fetal side of five donated human placentas perfused in the lab, hinting that little of it crosses, though this is a model and not evidence from real pregnancies.

This new real-world study found that in 53 people with chronic migraine who had already failed CGRP antibodies and at least three oral preventives, Botox cut monthly headache days from 22.8 to 14.6 over six months, with 45 percent halving their headache days.

This new cohort study of 83 children taking the preventive lomerizine found that about half had their headache days cut in half by 6 to 8 months, but response was far lower in those with psychosocial difficulties, 20 percent versus 67 percent.

This new randomized trial found that in 23 adults with chronic migraine, three low-dose botulinum toxin injections along a scalp artery cut pain on the treated side from 8.7 to 2.7 out of 10 at two months, with saline injected on the other side as the comparison.

This new clinical review found that migraine is the most common headache type in people with joint hypermobility and hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, but that spinal fluid leaks, craniocervical instability and jaw joint problems are also more common and easy to miss.

This new biomarker study of 266 people found that resting blood CGRP levels were about twice as high in Meniere disease as in vestibular migraine, telling the two apart with 80 percent accuracy, though levels overlapped with chronic migraine and the test still needs validation.

This new content analysis found that the most viewed TikTok videos tagged migraine scored low on reliability, quality and understandability, with longer videos scoring better, so popular short clips are a poor place to learn about the disease.

This new global modeling study found that about 51.5 percent of people worldwide are expected to develop migraine at some point in their lives, 59.8 percent of women versus 42.0 percent of men, with that figure projected to reach 57.2 percent by 2050.

This new comparative study of 1,818 patients found that a machine learning model built for headache diagnosis agreed with specialist diagnoses considerably better than an off-the-shelf general-purpose AI model, 0.46 versus 0.26 on a standard agreement scale.

This new nationwide analysis found that among 7,840 people in Hungary starting a triptan, only 14.4 percent were still filling triptan prescriptions at 90 days and 5.3 percent at one year, while 16 to 18 percent kept using acute medication at overuse levels.

Atogepant for Migraine Prevention: What the Data Shows A new meta-analysis of 6 randomized trials and 3,453 people shows how much atogepant actually reduces monthly migraine days, which dose works best, and what side effects to expect.

Screen Time and Migraine: What 22 Studies and 14,763 People Show Twenty-two studies and 14,763 people, pooled: higher screen exposure is linked to about 60% greater odds of migraine or headache, on evidence the authors grade as low certainty.

This new cohort study found that a single ultrasound-guided pulsed radiofrequency treatment of the greater occipital nerve helped 60 percent of 116 people whose migraine prevention had already failed, cutting monthly headache days from 14.3 to 6.1 over one year.

This new pilot randomized trial found that in 19 children and teens with headache, four weeks of daily aerobic exercise at home improved headache-related disability about as much as daily stretching, with no clear difference in quality of life.

This new randomized trial found that in 150 children with migraine, cinnarizine prevented attacks better than valproate over three months, with 26 percent responding versus 14 percent, and at slightly lower total cost.

This new cohort study found that in 61 people who had facial botulinum toxin, many of them for migraine prevention, single fiber EMG jitter stayed abnormal past 12 months in some cases, so prior Botox can distort this nerve test long after the last injection.

This new cross sectional study found that women with migraine in early pregnancy reported more anxiety, depression, poor sleep and physical symptoms than those without, and had lower serum calcium, though the study can only show a correlation.

Dysport hits its targets in two late-stage migraine prevention trials Ipsen reported on July 9, 2026 that its botulinum toxin Dysport met the main goal in two phase 3 trials, C-BEOND in chronic migraine and E-BEOND in episodic migraine. Across 1,510 patients, both trials showed a significant drop in monthly migraine days compared with placebo, and the safety findings matched what is already known from Dysport's approved uses.

This new nationwide analysis found that 91.3% of US counties have no board-certified headache specialist, and two thirds have no neurologist at all. Counties with more social and economic disadvantage had fewer specialists even after accounting for population size and how urban or rural they were. State-level numbers hide these local gaps, so access to expert migraine care depends heavily on where you live.

This new randomized trial found that adding 8 clinic-based virtual reality sessions to 4 weeks of home vestibular exercises cut dizziness handicap scores by a clinically meaningful margin in 40 people with vestibular migraine. Dynamic balance control improved more than with home exercise alone. Both groups got better on most other measures, so the extra benefit was specific to symptoms and postural control.

This new UK Biobank study of 327,234 adults found that the order of diagnosis matters when migraine and depression occur together. People diagnosed with depression first reported more sleep problems, higher stress, and far worse self-rated health than those diagnosed with migraine first. Because this is a snapshot rather than a follow-up study, it cannot show which condition drove the other.

This new phase 3 randomized trial found that fremanezumab cut monthly migraine days by about 4.6 days versus 2.8 days with placebo in Chinese adults over 12 weeks. Days needing acute headache medication dropped by 3.0 versus 1.1. Side effect rates were similar to placebo, and the benefit held through a 12-week open-label extension.

This new global review found that migraine guidelines from six countries and societies agree on how migraine is diagnosed and on triptans for moderate to severe attacks. They differ widely on newer CGRP treatments, which are first-line in the US and Japan but restricted in Britain and France. Most of that gap comes down to drug availability and insurance coverage rather than disagreement about the evidence.

This new schools-based cross-sectional study found that among 2,352 children and adolescents in Nepal, headache cost roughly 3 to 6 percent of school time, and more than a fifth of parents lost time from their own work. Migraine was tied to worse quality of life and emotional impact than tension-type headache. The heaviest burden fell on the small group with medication-overuse headache or headache on 15 or more days a month.

This meta-analysis of 8 randomized trials and 594 people found the evidence on ginger for migraine is too thin and too low in quality to say whether it works, either for stopping an attack or preventing one, despite a signal that adding it to an existing preventive lowered pain severity at three months.

This analysis of health records from 130 organizations matched 17,738 people with epilepsy and migraine taking a CGRP inhibitor against 18,594 who were not, and found status epilepticus in 2.4 percent versus 4.6 percent. It is observational, so it cannot show the drugs caused the difference, but the authors call for a randomized trial.

This retrospective study of 81 people whose migraine burden was dominated by aura found that monthly aura days fell from 6.9 to 1.4 after starting lamotrigine, with about 85 percent responding. There was no control group and the treating clinic collected its own data, so a controlled trial is the obvious next step.

This real-world study followed 111 people across 320 attacks treated with fixed-dose sumatriptan and naproxen, and found complete pain freedom at two hours in only 24 percent, though 69 percent got meaningful relief and 77 percent needed no rescue medicine. Treating within the first hour worked better than waiting.