Migraine? No Problem For Machine

[ICI Authors]

An electronic device that emits a magnetic field could offer relief for millions of people who suffer from migraine headaches.

The device, tested by Yousef Mohammad, an assistant professor of neurology at Ohio State University Medical Center, administers a therapy known as transcranial magnetic stimulation.

The therapy, its proponents claim, painlessly "resets" hyperactive neurons associated with the disease.

"The patients feel a little pressure, but that's all," said Mohammad, who presented the results of a preliminary study today at the annual American Headache Society meeting in Los Angeles.

Only since that late 1990s have doctors begun to understand that hyper-excited neurons — not vascular constriction — are at the root of migraines.

The hyper-excited neurons set off otherwise normal neurons nearby in a chain reaction of dysfunction that spreads quickly over the brain.

About 25 percent of migraine sufferers experience the spread of hyperactivity as an aura — seeing shooting stars, zigzagging lines, flashing lights, and feeling a tingling sensation, among other things — an hour before the migraine sets it.

The device is meant to interrupt that chain reaction before it leads to the pulsating headache, sensitivity to light and sound, and vomiting associated with the headache.

Source: Discovery

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