The results of a study recently published in the medical journal Neurology identify a portion of the brain that is actually different in migraine sufferers than in people who haven’t experienced this very painful neurological disorder. Nouchine Hadjikhani, MD, lead author of the study says repeated bouts of migraine headaches may be responsible for structural changes to the cortex region of the brain. It is still unknown whether these structural changes cause the migraines or if they are a result of the migraine. The cortex is the region of the brain that processes sensory stimulation, including pain. In study subjects with a history of migraine attacks, the cortex proved to be about 21% thicker, on average, than study subjects who had no history of migraine headaches. One theory from the study results is that overstimulation of the cortex region over a long period of time may have generated the thickened cortex area. Another theory is that the cortex region was already thickened, thus open to hyperstimulation over a long period of time, which may have triggered the migraine attacks. It is clear from the results of this study that sensory processing is an important aspect in […]