When patients who suffer from migraine underwent PET scans, researchers found a reduction and fluctuation of dopamine in their brains during the headache attack.

When patients are suffering from migraine, physicians often give them dopamine antagonists that help in leveling wild dopamine fluctuations, ultimately easing the headache attacks. 

Researchers from the University of Michigan had their findings published in Neurology. For their study, eight episodic migraineurs and eight healthy controls received PET scans during and between migraine attacks. The team of researchers compared the data between both migraine sufferers and healthy controls.

Data showed that during interictal phase, patients with migraines had stable dopamine levels that were just as even with healthy patients. However, there was a sudden reduction in dopamine during a migraine attack.

“Our findings demonstrate that there is a reduction and fluctuation in uptake of [¹¹C]raclopride (a selective dopamine antagonist) during the headache attack and ictal allodynia, which indicates an imbalance in ictal endogenous dopamine release in migraineurs,” wrote the researchers. “Moreover, the longer the history and recurrence of migraine attacks, the lower the ictal endogenous DA release.”