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Transcranial Doppler measurements in migraine and nitroglycerin headache

The Journal of Headache and Pain volume 8, pages 289–293 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

The objective of this study was to examine the cerebral circulation during spontaneous migraine attacks and to compare changes to an experimental headache model induced by nitroglycerin (NTG) infusion. This prospective study was carried out in a tertiary care hospital on migraineurs with or without aura. Healthy volunteers served as controls. There were no interventions. Flow velocity (FV) and pulsatility index (PI) were measured in migraineurs between and during headache attacks. In controls, FV and PI of the middle cerebral arteries were performed at baseline and after each IV infusion of 0.125, 0.25 and 0.5 μg/kg/min of NTG. In migraineurs, a significant increase in the mean flow velocity (MFV) in the left vertebral artery (VA) and the PI of the right VA during spontaneous migraine headache was found. In controls, all FV significantly decreased after infusion of NTG. The NTG model produces expected and substantially different vascular effects than those seen with spontaneous migraine headache.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology, Michigan State University, 138 Service Road, A-217, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA

    Mounzer Y. Kassab, Arshad Majid, Omid Bakhtar, Muhammad U. Farooq & Kamakshi Patel

  2. Department of Nuclear Medicine, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, USA

    Edward M. Bednarczyk

Authors
  1. Mounzer Y. Kassab
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  2. Arshad Majid
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  3. Omid Bakhtar
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  4. Muhammad U. Farooq
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  5. Kamakshi Patel
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  6. Edward M. Bednarczyk
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Correspondence to Mounzer Y. Kassab.

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Open Access This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0 ), which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.

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Kassab, M.Y., Majid, A., Bakhtar, O. et al. Transcranial Doppler measurements in migraine and nitroglycerin headache. J Headache Pain 8, 289–293 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10194-007-0413-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10194-007-0413-8

Keywords

The Journal of Headache and Pain

ISSN: 1129-2377

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