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Hot topics in headache and pain from the EHF-SAS

Edited by: Paolo Martelletti 

This collection of articles results from the tight collaboration between the European Headache Federation (EHF) and its Official Journal, The Journal of Headache and Pain.  

EHF Digital Education




The educational aim of EHF, its own School of Advanced Studies (EHF-SAS), provides for nurturing talented young researchers in the headache area. Each Meeting of the EHF-SAS ends its path with the preparation of a review on special topics to be submitted for regular peer-review. EHF provides economical support for the related APCs. In such way we think that the positive loop might be maintained and attract more and more young researchers. 

This collection of articles has been sponsored by the EHF. Articles have undergone the journal's standard peer-review process overseen by the Editor-in-Chief. 


  1. Migraine is a disabling neurovascular disorder among people of all ages, with the highest prevalence in the fertile years, and in women. Migraine impacts the quality of life of affected individuals tremendousl...

    Authors: Noor Bruijn, Romy van Lohuizen, Malgorzata Boron, Mira Fitzek, Francesca Gabriele, Giada Giuliani, Laura Melgarejo, Pavel Řehulka, Gabriele Sebastianelli, Paul Triller, Simone Vigneri, Behiye Özcan and Antoinette Maassen van den Brink
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2024 25:20
  2. Migraine and epilepsy are two paroxysmal chronic neurological disorders affecting a high number of individuals and being responsible for a high individual and socioeconomic burden. The link between these disor...

    Authors: Jakob Paungarttner, Martina Quartana, Lucrezia Patti, Barbora Sklenárová, Fatemeh Farham, Inés Hernando Jiménez, M. Gokcen Soylu, Irina Maria Vlad, Semih Tasdelen, Teresa Mateu, Oreste Marsico, Federica Reina, Viktoria Tischler and Christian Lampl
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2024 25:11
  3. Migraine is a debilitating neurological disorder with pain profile, suggesting exaggerated mechanosensation. Mechanosensitive receptors of different families, which specifically respond to various mechanical s...

    Authors: Adriana Della Pietra, Laura Gómez Dabó, Petr Mikulenka, Christian Espinoza-Vinces, Doga Vuralli, Isil Baytekin, Paolo Martelletti and Rashid Giniatullin
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2024 25:6
  4. Targeting CGRP has proved to be efficacious, tolerable, and safe to treat migraine; however, many patients with migraine do not benefit from drugs that antagonize the CGRPergic system. Therefore, this review f...

    Authors: Alejandro Labastida-Ramírez, Edoardo Caronna, Cédric Gollion, Emily Stanyer, Austeja Dapkute, Diana Braniste, Hoda Naghshineh, Liga Meksa, Nino Chkhitunidze, Tamari Gudadze, Patricia Pozo-Rosich, Rami Burstein and Jan Hoffmann
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2023 24:125
  5. Migraine is a disabling and chronic neurovascular headache disorder. Trigeminal vascular activation and release of calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) play a pivotal role in the pathogenesis of migraine. Th...

    Authors: Linda Al-Hassany, Deirdre M. Boucherie, Hannah Creeney, Ruben W. A. van Drie, Fatemeh Farham, Silvia Favaretto, Cédric Gollion, Lou Grangeon, Hannah Lyons, Karol Marschollek, Dilara Onan, Umberto Pensato, Emily Stanyer, Marta Waliszewska-Prosół, Wietse Wiels, Hui Zhou Chen…
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2023 24:76
  6. Migraine is a severe neurovascular disorder of which the pathophysiology is not yet fully understood. Besides the role of inflammatory mediators that interact with the trigeminovascular system, cyclic fluctuat...

    Authors: Anna K. Szewczyk, Samiye Ulutas, Tülin Aktürk, Linda Al-Hassany, Corinna Börner, Federica Cernigliaro, Michalis Kodounis, Salvatore Lo Cascio, David Mikolajek, Dilara Onan, Chiara Ragaglini, Susanna Ratti, Eduardo Rivera-Mancilla, Sofia Tsanoula, Rafael Villino, Karl Messlinger…
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2023 24:31
  7. Migraine is a complex brain disorder explained by the interaction of genetic and environmental factors. In monogenic migraines, including familial hemiplegic migraine and migraine with aura associated with her...

    Authors: Lou Grangeon, Kristin Sophie Lange, Marta Waliszewska-Prosół, Dilara Onan, Karol Marschollek, Wietse Wiels, Petr Mikulenka, Fatemeh Farham, Cédric Gollion and Anne Ducros
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2023 24:12
  8. Migraine prophylactic therapy has changed over recent years with the development and approval of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) targeting the calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) pathway. As new therapies emer...

    Authors: Linda Al-Hassany, Hannah S. Lyons, Deirdre M. Boucherie, Fatemeh Farham, Kristin S. Lange, Karol Marschollek, Dilara Onan, Umberto Pensato, Elisabeth Storch, Angelo Torrente, Marta Waliszewska-Prosół and Uwe Reuter
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2023 24:9
  9. Headache is the most prevalent neurological manifestation in adults and one of the leading causes of disability worldwide. In children and adolescents, headaches are arguably responsible for a remarkable impac...

    Authors: Agnese Onofri, Umberto Pensato, Chiara Rosignoli, William Wells-Gatnik, Emily Stanyer, Raffaele Ornello, Hui Zhou Chen, Federico De Santis, Angelo Torrente, Petr Mikulenka, Gabriele Monte, Karol Marschollek, Marta Waliszewska-Prosół, Wietse Wiels, Deirdre M. Boucherie, Dilara Onan…
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2023 24:8
  10. Vaccines against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are used to reduce the risk of developing Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). Despite the significant benefits in terms of reduced...

    Authors: Matteo Castaldo, Marta Waliszewska-Prosół, Maria Koutsokera, Micaela Robotti, Marcin StraburzyÅ„ski, Loukia Apostolakopoulou, Mariarita Capizzi, Oneda Çibuku, Fidel Dominique Festin Ambat, Ilaria Frattale, Zukhra Gadzhieva, Erica Gallo, Anna Gryglas-Dworak, Gleni Halili, Asel Jusupova, Yana Koperskaya…
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2022 23:41
  11. Primary headache disorders are common and burdensome conditions. They are associated to several comorbidities, such as cardiovascular or psychiatric ones, which, in turn, contribute to the global burden of hea...

    Authors: Valeria Caponnetto, Manuela Deodato, Micaela Robotti, Maria Koutsokera, Valeria Pozzilli, Cristina Galati, Giovanna Nocera, Eleonora De Matteis, Gioacchino De Vanna, Emanuela Fellini, Gleni Halili, Daniele Martinelli, Gabriele Nalli, Serena Serratore, Irene Tramacere, Paolo Martelletti…
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2021 22:71
  12. Chronic headache is particularly prevalent in migraineurs and it can progress to a condition known as medication overuse headache (MOH). MOH is a secondary headache caused by overuse of analgesics or other med...

    Authors: Tatiane Teru Takahashi, Raffaele Ornello, Giuseppe Quatrosi, Angelo Torrente, Maria Albanese, Simone Vigneri, Martina Guglielmetti, Cristiano Maria De Marco, Camille Dutordoir, Enrico Colangeli, Matteo Fuccaro, Davide Di Lenola, Valerio Spuntarelli, Laura Pilati, Salvatore Di Marco, Annelies Van Dycke…
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2021 22:32

    The Correction to this article has been published in The Journal of Headache and Pain 2021 22:64

  13. Migraine and sleep disorders are common and often burdensome chronic conditions with a high prevalence in the general population, and with considerable socio-economic impact and costs.

    Authors: Cindy Tiseo, Alessandro Vacca, Anton Felbush, Tamara Filimonova, Annalisa Gai, Tatyana Glazyrina, Irina Anna Hubalek, Yelena Marchenko, Lucas Hendrik Overeem, Serena Piroso, Alexander Tkachev, Paolo Martelletti and Simona Sacco
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2020 21:126
  14. According to the International Classification of Headache Disorders 3, post-traumatic headache (PTH) attributed to traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a secondary headache reported to have developed within 7 days ...

    Authors: Silvia Benemei, Alejandro Labastida-Ramírez, Ekaterina Abramova, Nicoletta Brunelli, Edoardo Caronna, Paola Diana, Roman Gapeshin, Maxi Dana Hofacker, Ilaria Maestrini, Enrique Martínez Pías, Petr Mikulenka, Olga Tikhonova, Paolo Martelletti and Antoinette MaassenVanDenBrink
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2020 21:90
  15. The fifth cranial nerve is the common denominator for many headaches and facial pain pathologies currently known. Projecting from the trigeminal ganglion, in a bipolar manner, it connects to the brainstem and ...

    Authors: J. C. A. Edvinsson, A. Viganò, A. Alekseeva, E. Alieva, R. Arruda, C. De Luca, N. D’Ettore, I. Frattale, M. Kurnukhina, N. Macerola, E. Malenkova, M. Maiorova, A. Novikova, P. Řehulka, V. Rapaccini, O. Roshchina…
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2020 21:65
  16. Headache is a common complication of traumatic brain injury. The International Headache Society defines post-traumatic headache as a secondary headache attributed to trauma or injury to the head that develops ...

    Authors: Alejandro Labastida-Ramírez, Silvia Benemei, Maria Albanese, Antonina D’Amico, Giovanni Grillo, Oxana Grosu, Devrimsel Harika Ertem, Jasper Mecklenburg, Elena Petrovna Fedorova, Pavel Řehulka, Francesca Schiano di Cola, Javier Trigo Lopez, Nina Vashchenko, Antoinette MaassenVanDenBrink and Paolo Martelletti
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2020 21:55
  17. Chronic migraine is a neurological disorder characterized by 15 or more headache days per month of which at least 8 days show typical migraine features. The process that describes the development from episodic...

    Authors: M. Torres-Ferrús, F. Ursitti, A. Alpuente, F. Brunello, D. Chiappino, T. de Vries, S. Di Marco, S. Ferlisi, L. Guerritore, N. Gonzalez-Garcia, A. Gonzalez-Martinez, D. Khutorov, M. Kritsilis, A. Kyrou, T. Makeeva, A. Minguez-Olaondo…
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2020 21:42
  18. The terminology “gut-brain axis “points out a bidirectional relationship between the GI system and the central nervous system (CNS). To date, several researches have shown that migraine is associated with some...

    Authors: Mahsa Arzani, Soodeh Razeghi Jahromi, Zeinab Ghorbani, Fahimeh Vahabizad, Paolo Martelletti, Amir Ghaemi, Simona Sacco and Mansoureh Togha
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2020 21:15
  19. Resting-state functional connectivity (FC) MRI has widely been used to understand migraine pathophysiology and to identify an imaging marker of the disorder. Here, we review what we have learned from FC studies.

    Authors: Kirill Skorobogatykh, Willem Sebastiaan van Hoogstraten, Diana Degan, Anastasia Prischepa, Anastasya Savitskaya, Biondo Michela Ileen, Enrico Bentivegna, Iaroslav Skiba, Laura D’Acunto, Livia Ferri, Simona Sacco, Jakob Møller Hansen and Faisal Mohammad Amin
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2019 20:108
  20. The global prevalence of migraine as a primary headache has been estimated as 14.4% in both sexes. Migraine headache has been ranked as the highest contributor to disability in under 50 years old population in...

    Authors: Soodeh Razeghi Jahromi, Zeinab Ghorbani, Paolo Martelletti, Christian Lampl and Mansoureh Togha
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2019 20:106
  21. Headache is very often the cause for seeking an emergency department (ED). However, less is known about the different diagnosis of headache disorders in the ED, their management and treatment. The aim of this ...

    Authors: Alberto Doretti, Irina Shestaritc, Daniela Ungaro, John-Ih Lee, Loukas Lymperopoulos, Lili Kokoti, Martina Guglielmetti, Dimos Dimitrios Mitsikostas and Christian Lampl
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2019 20:100
  22. Migraine is a highly prevalent and disabling neurological disorder which is commonly linked with a broad range of psychiatric comorbidities, especially among subjects with migraine with aura or chronic migrain...

    Authors: Thomas Dresler, Salvatore Caratozzolo, Kaat Guldolf, Jana-Isabel Huhn, Carmela Loiacono, Triinu Niiberg-Pikksööt, Marta Puma, Giorgia Sforza, Anna Tobia, Raffaele Ornello and Gianluca Serafini
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2019 20:51
  23. Calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) is a neuropeptide with a pivotal role in the pathophysiology of migraine. Blockade of CGRP is a new therapeutic target for patients with migraine. CGRP and its receptors ...

    Authors: Valentina Favoni, Luca Giani, Linda Al-Hassany, Gian Maria Asioli, Calogera Butera, Irene de Boer, Martina Guglielmetti, Chrysoula Koniari, Theodoros Mavridis, Marge Vaikjärv, Iris Verhagen, Angela Verzina, Bart Zick, Paolo Martelletti and Simona Sacco
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2019 20:27
  24. The three primary headaches, tension-type headache, migraine and cluster headache, occur in both genders, but all seem to have a sex-specific prevalence. These gender differences suggest that both male and fem...

    Authors: Zoë Delaruelle, Tatiana A. Ivanova, Sabrina Khan, Andrea Negro, Raffaele Ornello, Bianca Raffaelli, Alberto Terrin, Dimos D. Mitsikostas and Uwe Reuter
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2018 19:117
  25. Primary headache are prevalent and debilitating disorders. Acute pain cessation is one of the key points in their treatment. Many drugs have been studied but the design of the trials is not usually homogeneous...

    Authors: D. García-Azorin, N. Yamani, L. M. Messina, I. Peeters, M. Ferrili, D. Ovchinnikov, M. L. Speranza, V. Marini, A. Negro, S. Benemei and M. Barloese
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2018 19:90

    The Correction to this article has been published in The Journal of Headache and Pain 2019 20:14

  26. Although clinically distinguishable, migraine and cluster headache share prominent features such as unilateral pain, common pharmacological triggers such glyceryl trinitrate, histamine, calcitonin gene-related...

    Authors: Anne Luise Vollesen, Silvia Benemei, Francesca Cortese, Alejandro Labastida-Ramírez, Francesca Marchese, Lanfranco Pellesi, Michele Romoli, Messoud Ashina and Christian Lampl
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2018 19:89
  27. There is an unmet need of pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatment options for migraine patients. Exercise can be used in the treatment of several pain conditions, including. However, what exact role ...

    Authors: Faisal Mohammad Amin, Stavroula Aristeidou, Carlo Baraldi, Ewa K. Czapinska-Ciepiela, Daponte D. Ariadni, Davide Di Lenola, Cherilyn Fenech, Konstantinos Kampouris, Giorgos Karagiorgis, Mark Braschinsky and Mattias Linde
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2018 19:83
  28. Pituitary adenylate cyclase activating polypeptide-38 (PACAP38) is a widely distributed neuropeptide involved in neuroprotection, neurodevelopment, nociception and inflammation. Moreover, PACAP38 is a potent i...

    Authors: Eloisa Rubio-Beltrán, Edvige Correnti, Marie Deen, Katharina Kamm, Tim Kelderman, Laura Papetti, Simone Vigneri, Antoinette MaassenVanDenBrink and Lars Edvinsson
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2018 19:64
  29. Medication overuse in primary headache disorders is a worldwide phenomenon and has a role in the chronification of headache disorders. The burden of disease on individuals and societies is significant due to h...

    Authors: Nicolas Vandenbussche, Domenico Laterza, Marco Lisicki, Joseph Lloyd, Chiara Lupi, Hannes Tischler, Kati Toom, Fenne Vandervorst, Simone Quintana, Koen Paemeleire and Zaza Katsarava
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2018 19:50
  30. This systematic review summarizes the existing data on headache and pregnancy with a scope on clinical headache phenotypes, treatment of headaches in pregnancy and effects of headache medications on the child ...

    Authors: A. Negro, Z. Delaruelle, T. A. Ivanova, S. Khan, R. Ornello, B. Raffaelli, A. Terrin, U. Reuter and D. D. Mitsikostas
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2017 18:106
  31. The trigeminovascular system plays a key role in the pathophysiology of migraine. The activation of the trigeminovascular system causes release of various neurotransmitters and neuropeptides, including seroton...

    Authors: Silvia Benemei, Francesca Cortese, Alejandro Labastida-Ramírez, Francesca Marchese, Lanfranco Pellesi, Michele Romoli, Anne Luise Vollesen, Christian Lampl and Messoud Ashina
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2017 18:103
  32. Migraine is the most prevalent neurological disorder worldwide and it has immense socioeconomic impact. Currently, preventative treatment options for migraine include drugs developed for diseases other than mi...

    Authors: Marie Deen, Edvige Correnti, Katharina Kamm, Tim Kelderman, Laura Papetti, Eloisa Rubio-Beltrán, Simone Vigneri, Lars Edvinsson and Antoinette Maassen Van Den Brink
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2017 18:96