Edited by Yonggang Wang
This thematic series aims to provide a collection of papers addressing the novel pathophysiology and developing neuroimaging-guided treatments for headache disorders.
Headache is a leading cause of disability worldwide, affecting more than 50% global population. The development of non-invasive neuroimaging techniques has significantly advanced our understanding of headache pathophysiology. These techniques, including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET), electroencephalogram (EEG), and magnetoencephalography (MEG), have been used to study abnormal brain functions and structures in patients with different types of headaches. The neuroimaging methods have provided means for exploring the functional anatomy of the headache related nuclei. In headache syndromes, these techniques should open new ways for targeting the neural substrates at the basis of the diseases. In addition, these techniques promise to be a powerful method for investigating and monitoring the effects of novel therapies. Moreover, studies that aimed to develop new intervention approaches also applied neuroimaging techniques to associate the changes of brain responses with the changes of headache symptoms, exploring a deeper understanding of the treatment mechanism thus facilitating treatment protocols.
Topics of interest include but are not limited to the following:
- Shared and distinct brain abnormalities in different types of headaches (e.g., migraine, tension-type, cluster headache, NDPH and other types of headaches);
- Neuroimaging studies for headache heterogeneous, for example, subtypes of migraine defined by neuroimaging data;
- Neuroimaging and multiomics association analysis such as imaging-genetics studies showing the novel associations between risk genes and brain abnormalities in headaches;
- To explore the neural circuits associated with headache using new neuroimaging techniques (e.g. 7T-MRI, brain network or functional connectivity, machine learning and artificial intelligence);
- Neuroimaging studies of pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions for headaches;
- Applying multimodal neuroimaging technology to explore the central mechanism of headache, for example, combining structural, functional and metabolic neuroimaging data to explore the pathogenesis of headache.
Paper formats which may be considered for this collection include:
- Research
- Review
