Study of the Glymphatic System in Migraine

Inclusion Criteria:

For patients:

• Diagnosis of migraine, by the ICHD-3 criteria;

For both patients and healthy controls:

• Age between 18 and 60 years;

• Willing and able to comply with scheduled visits.

Exclusion criteria

For patients:

• Overuse of acute medications for headache;

• Continuous or daily headache;

• Other primary headache disorders, with the exception of infrequent tension-type headache.

For healthy controls:

• Any subject with frequent tension type headache, migraine, cluster headache, other pain syndromes or neurological conditions.

For both patients and healthy controls:

• Allergy to nitroglycerin;

• Major psychiatric disorders such as bipolar affective disorder and schizophrenia;

• Cardiovascular diseases that contraindicated the use of nitroglycerin;

• Intracranial hypertension;

• Cerebral haemorrhage;

• Cerebral trauma;

• Pulmonary toxic oedema;

• Closed angle glaucoma;

• Anaemia;

• Pregnancy and breastfeeding;

• Aortic stenosis or significant hypotension (SBP<90mmHg or <100mmHg and symptomatic) precluding nitroglycerin administration;

• Use of sildenafil;

• Any person unable to lie still within the environment of the MRI scanner for the required period to perform the study;

• Any person where MRI scanning is contraindicated (metal implants, pacemaker, claustrophobia, etc.);

• Use of illicit drugs;

• MRI head showing any brain pathology, such as space-occupying lesions;

• Any person unable to understand and follow the instructions of the investigators.