Migraine Study Finds Brains Look 4.24 Years Older Across 66 Regions
Updated
Updated · PsyPost · Aug 3
Migraine Study Finds Brains Look 4.24 Years Older Across 66 Regions
3 articles · Updated · PsyPost · Aug 3
Summary
MRI scans from 110 migraine patients showed a global brain-age gap of about 4.24 years, while 70 healthy controls did not show a comparable gap.
A machine-learning model trained on 1,318 healthy people found elevated aging in 66 of 442 brain regions, concentrated in the prefrontal, frontal, parietal and temporal cortices and the amygdala.
Those older-looking regions overlap with networks for pain, emotion and cognition, and their aging patterns were linked to headache frequency, abortive painkiller use and depression scores.
Functional analysis tied the affected areas to attention, working memory, language, auditory processing and inhibitory control, suggesting migraine's burden extends beyond headache pain.
The Brain Communications study was cross-sectional and drawn from a specialized headache clinic, so it cannot prove migraines cause faster brain aging or show whether the changes impair daily cognition.