Abstract
Purpose of Review
Tension-type headache is often regarded as the “normal” headache due to its high prevalence and mild disability in contrast with migraine. Clinically, both headaches are common comorbidities to each other. To date there has been many studies linked migraine to a brain excitability disorder. This review summarized earlier studies on brain excitability of TTH and discuss if TTH is a separate clinical entity from migraine as suggested by the diagnostic criteria.
Recent Findings
A recent magnetoencephalographic study from our group enrolled patients with “strict-criteria” TTH (i.e., absence of any migraine characteristics and associated symptoms) to compare the somatosensory excitability with patients with migraine and controls. This study provided evidence that TTH and migraine differ in excitability profiles and the measurement of preactivation excitability was able to discriminate TTH from migraine.
Summary
Earlier studies on brain excitability of TTH yielded negative findings or a common change shared with migraine. Future studies using strict diagnostic criteria to avoid the unwanted interference from migraine comorbidity may help decipher the “true” pathophysiology of TTH, which may pave the way to a TTH-specific brain signature and treatment.
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Funding
The authors disclose receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and article publication: Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan (MOST 107-2314-B-075-015-MY2-2 to WT Chen, 108-2321-B-010-001 and 108-2321-B-010-014-MY2 to SJ Wang, and 107-2221-E-010-007 and 108-2221-E-010-004 to FJ Hsiao) and Taipei-Veterans General Hospital (V108C-129 and V107C-091 to WT Chen). This work was supported by the Brain Research Center, National Yang-Ming University from The Featured Areas Research Center Program within the framework of the Higher Education Sprout Project by the Ministry of Education in Taiwan.
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Wei-Ta Chen, Fu-Jung Hsiao, and Shuu-Jiun Wang declare no conflict of interest.
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Chen, WT., Hsiao, FJ. & Wang, SJ. Brain Excitability in Tension-Type Headache: a Separate Entity from Migraine?. Curr Pain Headache Rep 24, 82 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11916-020-00916-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11916-020-00916-1