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For patients, the scans provide validation, and for researchers, it helps them to target treatments. “When you scan a migraine sufferer, four out of five times you can see what their brain is doing differently to people who don’t get migraine,” Peter explains. “Rest assured, it's crystal clear and we can reproduce it many times over. “Migraine is a disorder of the way the brain deals with its environment and incoming information. That's why it's complex, because all the senses like touch, sound, smell, and sight are affected at various levels in different people. “We haven't understood why some people, for example, would need to wear dark glasses all the time and for some people light doesn't bother them at all. “What is more useful and what we are interested in is the relatively simple question of if you have a preventive treatment, does that change the way the brain responds? And the answer is, unsurprisingly, yes.” Peter’s extensive research helped to bring an exciting class of new medications to market in 2020 which target the cause, rather than the symptoms, of migraine. Called CGRP (calcitonin gene-related peptide) inhibitors, they target a naturally occurring neuropeptide that helps to regulate nerve signalling, blood vessel dilation and inflammation in the brain. Professor Debbie Hay, a pharmacologist from the University of Otago, is at the forefront of CGRP research here and internationally, and has made crucial contributions to the evidence base relating to these drugs. She explains that CGRP becomes overactive in some people, triggering a cascade of neurological activity resulting in pain and other migraine symptoms. “Very often people with migraine talk about being examined, having a brain scan, and being told you are normal, when you probably don't feel very normal at all.” P rofessor Peter Goadsby Neurological Foundation CEO Rich Easton speaking at a recent seminar on migraine research. MRI scans of migraine attacks from the National Institute of Headache Research at King's College London. 6 Headlines