Association of Migraine Disorders

The mission of the Associations of Migraine Disorders is to raise the medical and general public’s awareness of this condition and to stimulate increased research in this area of neuroscience. Migraine Disorders are a spectrum of neurologic conditions which may have a common genetic and physiologic cause. Although most people associate a “migraine” with a headache, the same underlying faulty nerves that cause this head pain can also affect those nerves that line our sinuses, teeth and ears. This hypersensitivity of the nervous system can interrupt the normal way that we see the world, maintain our balance, hear, smell and taste. This problem may be affecting other parts of the brain that control our body temperature and our mood, our ability to sleep, to think and to remember. It may be the same neuropathy that causes fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, cyclic vomiting. Think of this problem as a malfunctioning electrical relay switch. The information from sensory nerves is being distorted, or overly amplified, on its way to the brain. That neural error may be an inherited defect which comes and goes throughout life depending on changing factors, such as hormonal shifts. Unfortunately, we cannot be sure of this explanation because this theory has not been widely considered among physicians and research of the nervous system is challenging and has not been well-funded.