Abstract
Chronic daily headache (CDH), defined as headache on 15 days a month or more for more than 3 months, is one of the most common forms of chronic pain. Nonetheless its pathophysiology is poorly understood. To answer the question as to whether chronic headache syndromes such as chronic tension-type headaches (CTTH) or medication-overuse headache (MOH) show morphological alterations, we investigated ...
Abstract
Chronic daily headache (CDH), defined as headache on 15 days a month or more for more than 3 months, is one of the most common forms of chronic pain. Nonetheless its pathophysiology is poorly understood. To answer the question as to whether chronic headache syndromes such as chronic tension-type headaches (CTTH) or medication-overuse headache (MOH) show morphological alterations, we investigated 40 patients suffering from chronic daily headache (20 CTTH and 20 MOH patients) and compared them to 40 healthy controls with no headache history. Using voxel-based morphometry (VBM) we found in CTTH a decrease in gray matter in the midbrain, the insula, anterior and posterior cingulum, para-hippocampus and frontoorbital cortex. These data suggest that the brain gray matter may be altered in regions known to play a substantial role in pain transmission and antinociception.
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