Skip to main content

Neuroimage on Headache

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


  1. Neuroimaging studies have made an important contribution to our understanding of headache pathophysiology. This systematic review aims to provide a comprehensive overview and critical appraisal of mechanisms o...

    Authors: R. Messina, R. H. Christensen, I. Cetta, M. Ashina and M. Filippi
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2023 24:58
  2. The aberrance of gray matter morphology in migraineurs has been widely investigated. However, it remains largely unknown whether there are illness duration-related hierarchical changes in the gray matter struc...

    Authors: Tao Yin, Lei Lan, Zilei Tian, Zhengjie Li, Mailan Liu, Yujie Gao, Fanrong Liang and Fang Zeng
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2023 24:53
  3. The pathogenesis of new daily persistent headache (NDPH) is not fully understood. We aim to map aberrant functional connectivity (FC) in patients with NDPH using resting-state functional magnetic resonance ima...

    Authors: Wei Wang, Ziyu Yuan, Xueyan Zhang, Xiaoyan Bai, Hefei Tang, Yanliang Mei, Dong Qiu, Yingkui Zhang, Peng Zhang, Xue Zhang, Yaqing Zhang, Xueying Yu, Binbin Sui and Yonggang Wang
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2023 24:46
  4. New daily persistent headache (NDPH) is a rare but debilitating primary headache disorder that poses a significant burden on individuals and society. Despite its clinical importance, the underlying pathophysio...

    Authors: Dong Qiu, Wei Wang, Yanliang Mei, Hefei Tang, Ziyu Yuan, Peng Zhang, Yaqing Zhang, Xueying Yu, Chunqing Yang, Qun Wang and Yonggang Wang
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2023 24:45
  5. Neuroanatomical alterations have been associated with cognitive deficits in mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI). However, most studies have focused on the abnormal gray matter volume in widespread brain regions...

    Authors: Hui Xu, Cheng Xu, Pengpeng Gu, Yike Hu, Yunyu Guo and Guanghui Bai
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2023 24:43
  6. To examine whether white matter hyperintensities (WMHs) and cerebral microbleeds (CMBs) are more prevalent in people with persistent post-traumatic headache attributed to mild traumatic brain injury (TBI), com...

    Authors: HÃ¥kan Ashina, Rune H. Christensen, Haidar Muhsen Al-Khazali, Afrim Iljazi, Daniel Tolnai, Anna K. Eigenbrodt, Henrik B. W. Larsson, Henrik W. Schytz, Ulrich Lindberg and Faisal Mohammad Amin
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2023 24:15
  7. New daily persistent headache (NPDH) is a rare primary headache that is highly disabling. The pathophysiology of NDPH is still unclear, and we aimed to reveal the underlying mechanism of NDPH through functiona...

    Authors: Xueyan Zhang, Wei Wang, Xiaoyan Bai, Yanliang Mei, Hefei Tang, Ziyu Yuan, Xue Zhang, Zhiye Li, Peng Zhang, Zhangxuan Hu, Yaqing Zhang, Xueying Yu, Binbin Sui and Yonggang Wang
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2023 24:14
  8. The changes in resting-state functional networks and their correlations with clinical traits remain to be clarified in migraine. Here we aim to investigate the brain spatio-temporal dynamics of resting-state n...

    Authors: Yan Zhou, Liusheng Gong, Yushu Yang, Linjie Tan, Lili Ruan, Xiu Chen, Hua Luo and Jianghai Ruan
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2023 24:13
  9. Migraine is a disabling neurological disorder with the pathophysiology yet to be understood. The microstructural alteration in brain white matter (WM) has been suggested to be related to migraine in recent stu...

    Authors: Lei Zhao, Wenhui Zhao, Jin Cao and Yiheng Tu
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2023 24:10
  10. Sphenopalatine ganglion (SPG) is a peripheral structure that plays an important role in cluster headache (CH). Hence, a reliable method to measure the volume of SPG is crucial for studying the peripheral mecha...

    Authors: Jr-Wei Wu, Shu-Ting Chen, Yen-Feng Wang, Kuan-Lin Lai, Ting-Yi Chen, Shih-Pin Chen, Wei-Ta Chen and Shuu-Jiun Wang
    Citation: The Journal of Headache and Pain 2023 24:2