‘Brain freeze’ provides clue to migraine cause and therapy

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDApr 23 2012

According to latest reports by researchers the headache that is caused by eating something cold like an ice cream, may be caused by a sudden change in brain blood flow. The U.S. team of researchers add that this study may show targets to treat other, more troubling forms of headache such as migraine.

For the study the team of researchers monitored brain blood flow in 13 healthy adults as they sipped ice water through a straw pressed against the upper palate so as to trigger “brain freeze.” The volunteers drank iced water through a straw that was pressed against their palate and then drank water at room temperature. Blood flow was monitored using a hand held Doppler device.

It was found that the anterior cerebral artery dilated rapidly and flooded the brain with blood in conjunction to when the volunteers felt pain. Soon after this dilation occurred, the same vessel constricted as the volunteers' pain receded.

The findings, were presented during a poster session Sunday (April 22) afternoon at the Experimental Biology 2012 meeting in San Diego. It may help lead to new treatments for other types of headaches, the researchers said. The rapid dilation and then quick constriction of the anterior cerebral artery may be a type of self-defence for the brain, explained study leader Jorge Serrador of Harvard Medical School and the War Related Illness and Injury Study Center of the Veterans Affairs New Jersey Health Care System.

“The brain is one of the relatively important organs in the body, and it needs to be working all the time. It's fairly sensitive to temperature, so vasodilation [expansion of blood vessels] might be moving warm blood inside tissue to make sure the brain stays warm,” Serrador noted in an American Physiological Society news release. He added that the skull is a closed structure and the sudden rush of blood could therefore boost pressure and cause pain. The subsequent constriction of the artery may also be a way to reduce pressure in the brain before it reaches dangerous levels.

Similar alterations in blood flow could be at work in migraines, post traumatic headaches, and other headache types, he added. If further research confirms that this is the case then finding ways to control brain blood flow could offer new treatments for headaches, he said. Drugs that block sudden vasodilatation or target channels involved specifically in the vasodilatation of headaches could be one way of changing headaches' course.