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Migraine and the Hippocampus

  • Chronic Daily Headache (S-J Wang, Section Editor)
  • Published:
Current Pain and Headache Reports Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose of Review

The hippocampus is involved in pain processing, pain-related attention and anxiety, and stress response. The present review compiles the present knowledge of hippocampal volume, activity, and connectivity regarding migraine.

Recent Findings

For hippocampal volume, a longitudinal study discovered decreased volume in newly diagnosed migraine patients after 1 year. Two cross-sectional studies suggested an adaptive increase of volume at low headache frequency and a maladaptive decrease of volume at higher headache frequency. Patients who carried a COMT Val homozygous were found to have larger hippocampi on both sides compared with healthy controls with the same polymorphism. For hippocampal activation, one study showed greater nociceptive activation in patients with migraine compared to healthy controls, with the activity correlated to headache frequency. Another study showed greater deactivation and higher functional connectivity linked to other pain-processing regions in low frequency compared to high-frequency migraineurs. At resting state, intraregional functional connectivity of hippocampus was demonstrated to be lower, and connectivity of the hippocampus with other brain regions was different in patients carrying specific genetic variants. For structural connectivity, two studies suggest a stronger connectivity between the hippocampus and other corticolimbic regions, and the altered connectivities are responsible for migraine-associated allodynia or placebo effect of migraine.

Summary

Factors including headache frequency, accumulative number of migraine attacks, anxiety score, depression score, and genetic variants are related to hippocampal morphology and functional changes in people with migraine. Future studies should select participants precisely and appropriately control for genetic variants to investigate the complex relationship between the hippocampus and migraine.

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References

Papers of particular interest, published recently, have been highlighted as: • Of importance

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology, Neurological Institute, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, No. 201, Sec. 2 Shih-Pai Rd, Taipei, Taiwan

    Hung-Yu Liu & Wei-Ta Chen

  2. School of Medicine, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan

    Hung-Yu Liu & Wei-Ta Chen

  3. Institute of Neuroscience, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan

    Kun-Hsien Chou

  4. Brain Research Center, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan

    Kun-Hsien Chou

  5. Institute of Brain Science, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan

    Wei-Ta Chen

Authors
  1. Hung-Yu Liu
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  2. Kun-Hsien Chou
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Correspondence to Hung-Yu Liu.

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Conflict of Interest

Hung-Yu Liu, Kun-Hsien Chou, and Wei-Ta Chen declare no conflict of interest.

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Chronic Daily Headache

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Liu, HY., Chou, KH. & Chen, WT. Migraine and the Hippocampus. Curr Pain Headache Rep 22, 13 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11916-018-0668-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11916-018-0668-6

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