This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Reply to article  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Related article  • Related letter  • Similar articles in this journal  Topic Collections  • Epilepsy  • Headache  • Migraine  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Michael A. Rogawski, MD, PhD

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

In reply

I am grateful to Dr Schürks for his comments, which provide an opportunity to further elaborate on the commonalities between migraine and epilepsy. Current theories of migraine recognize that activation and sensitization of the trigeminovascular system are responsible for the throbbing pain in a migraine attack.¹ However, in migraine with aura and perhaps also migraine without aura, cortical phenomena are believed to underlie episodic activation of the trigeminovascular system. The pivotal role of cortical mechanisms is an aspect of the pathophysiology of migraine shared with epilepsy. Nevertheless, new information has challenged the current dogma that presupposes neural events always precede trigeminovascular system activation.^2-3 There is emerging recognition that vascular phenomena could in some circumstances be the primary trigger in a migraine attack, although in migraine with aura (and presumably also migraine without aura) neural mechanisms must necessarily come into play.

The experimental literature . . . [Full Text of this Article]

AUTHOR INFORMATION



CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

RELATED ARTICLE

Common Pathophysiologic Mechanisms in Migraine and Epilepsy
Michael A. Rogawski
Arch Neurol. 2008;65(6):709-714.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

RELATED LETTER

Common Mechanisms in Migraine and Epilepsy: A Comment
Markus Schürks
Arch Neurol. 2008;65(11):1546.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT