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Main Category: Headache / Migraine
Also Included In: Neurology / Neuroscience
Article Date: 23 Apr 2012 - 10:00 PDT
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Harvard Medical School scientists who say they have a better idea of what causes brain freeze, believe that their study could eventually pave the way to more effective treatments for various types of headaches, such as migraine-related ones, or pain caused by brain injuries.
Brain freeze, also known as an ice-cream headache, cold-stimulus headache, or sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia, is a kind of short-term headache typically linked to the rapid consumption of ice-cream, ice pops, or very cold drinks.
Brain freeze occurs when something extremely cold touches the upper-palate (roof of the mouth). It normally happens when the weather is very hot, and the individual consumes something too fast.
Dr. Jorge Serrador, a cardiovascular electronics researcher, who presented the team's finding at the Experimental Biology 2012 meeting, San Diego, explained that until now, scientists have not been able to fully understand what causes brain freeze.
Dr. Serrador and team recruited 13 healthy adult volunteers. They were asked to sip ice-cold water through a straw, so that the liquid would hit their upper palate. Blood flow in their brain was monitored using a transcranial Doppler test.
They found that the sensation of brain freeze appears to be caused by a dramatic and sudden increase in blood flow through the brain's anterior cerebral artery. As soon as the artery constricted, the brain-freeze pain sensation wore off.
The scientists were able to trigger the artery's constriction by giving the volunteers warm water to drink.
Dr. Serrador explained that we already know that migraine sufferers are more likely to suffer brain freeze after drinking or eating very cold foods/drinks, compared to people who never have migraines. He suggests that some of what occurs during brain freeze may be similar to what causes migraines, and possibly other kinds of headaches, including those caused by traumatic brain injuries.Serrador and team believe that local changes in brain blood flow may be causing other types of headaches. If this can be confirmed in further studies, new medications that prevent or reverse vasodilation (widening of the blood vessels) may help treat headaches.
Brain freeze can occur if you eat an ice cream too fast
"The brain is one of the relatively important organs in the body, and it needs to be working all the time.It's fairly sensitive to temperature, so vasodilation might be moving warm blood inside tissue to make sure the brain stays warm."
If dilated arteries cause a sudden rush of blood to the brain, which raises pressure and causes pain, a drug that constricts the blood vessel should reduce pressure and eliminate the pain. Also, constricting the blood vessels that supply the brain could help prevent pressure building up dangerously high.
Written by Christian Nordqvist
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today
MLA
23 Apr. 2012.
Please note: If no author information is provided, the source is cited instead.
posted by Bill on 23 Apr 2012 at 10:36 am
None of my migraines are caused by cold or freezing food. Most seem associated with food. My best guess, after a lifetime of migraines, is that migraines - with nausea - are a primitive protection from what the body perceives to be poison. Hence the vomiting to rid the body of the threat. The increased blood flow to the brain is the same system operating to flush the brain of perceived poison. I hope I live to see the answer through research.
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posted by Isaac on 23 Apr 2012 at 11:02 am
I've known about this for the past 6 years. This isn't a new discovery.
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posted by CB on 23 Apr 2012 at 11:38 am
I have started to get these Brain freezes more and more when I drink frozen type drinks. I have always thought that this was due to the fact that the blood going to my brain is being cooled and that the cooler blood is what caused the headache. Also, if you consider the fact that our blood is always at around 99 degrees, so having it drop even a fraction could certainly have an effect. I try to have a glass of warm water on hand, which does instantly relieve the pain when this occurs.
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'Why Do We Get Brain Freeze? Scientists Explain'
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