Migraine to the Year 2000

Although migraine is inextricably bound up with 5-hydroxytryptamine and its many receptors, its precise mechanisms continue to elude us and there is still no clear evidence supporting either a vascular or neurogenic hypothesis unequivocally. What appears to distinguish migraine sufferers from normal subjects may be a greater gentic sensitivity to a wide variety of triggering agents--even including nitric oxide and the migraine aura, as well as those more usually recognized. Attention is drawn to a possible role for neurotrophins, such as the hyperalgesia-provoking nerve growth factor (NGF) in particular, as well as basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF).