Lightning May Induce The Onset of Headaches and Migraine

Researchers at the University of Cincinnati found that lightning may cause the onset of headaches and migraines.

When there is an imbalance of positive and negative charges in the atmosphere, lightning occurs. This occurs when the lower area of a storm cloud becomes negatively charged while objects on the ground become positively charge which causes an imbalance.

The clash of these two charges creates a bolt of electricity that is lightning. This happens to align and balance the atmospheric charges back to normal. The actual process on the formation of lightning is still being investigated.

A lightning bolt may carry as much as one billion volts of electricity. These lightning discharges can create a short burst of electromagnetic waves which creates a magnetic field. There are occasions when objects in the lightning's path becomes permanently magnetized. This effect is known as lightning-induced remanent magnetism, or LIRM.

The science of Bioelectromagnetics which is the study of the interaction between electromagnetic fields and biological entities, are looking into the effects of electromagnetic waves such as LIRM and the human body.

Concussion Rate in College Athletes Increasing

Concussion is the most common type of traumatic brain injury It is a head injury in which the brain is shaken. Sports athletes are susceptible to head injuries because of the extreme physical activity and contact required of in a game, specially in football. It is the leading cause of death from sports-related injuries.

Head trauma is an injury of the scalp, skull, or brain. The injury may vary from a minor bump on the skull to a serious brain injury. These head injuries can lead to a concussion.

Each year, an estimated 300,000 sports related traumatic brain injuries (TBI) occur in the United Stated. These include concussions, conditions of temporary altered mental status. Sports and recreational activities contribute to about 21 percent of all traumatic brain injuries among American children and adolescents.

Concussions affect college players at high rates too, study says

As interest in concussion rates and prevention strategies at all levels continues to grow, one population that appears to have increasing head injury rates is collegiate football players. Research presented today at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's (AOSSM) Annual Meeting in Baltimore highlights that the concussion rate in three college football programs has doubled in recent years.

"We monitored concussions at three service academies in the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 football seasons, and saw the combined number of reports increased from 23 to 42 in this timespan," noted Kelly G. Kilcoyne, MD, lead author from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Washington, DC.

Extent of Damage for Children With Brain Injury Difficult To Predict and Highly Variable

The Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) as "a bump, blow, or jolt to the head or a penetrating head injury that disrupts the normal function of the brain". Not all blows or jolts to the head are considered a TBI.

TBI may range from mild to severe. A mild case of TBI would result in a brief change in mental status or consciousness and a severe case would result in an extended period of unconsciousness or amnesia after the injury. The majority of TBIs that occur each year are concussions or other forms of mild TBI.

While the symptoms of a brain injury in children and adults are the same, the resulting condition may be different. The brain of a child is different, it still is developing. Although it is assumed that because the brain connections (neurons) change and grow (plasticity), children would recover better, this is not true. A brain injury actually has a more devastating impact on a child than an injury of the same severity has on a mature adult.

Results of a brain injury can manifest in months for an adult. But with a child, it may take years after the injury before the extent of the damage can be detected.

Outcomes for children after brain injury difficult to predict and highly variable

Outcomes for children with brain injury acquired during childhood are difficult to predict and vary significantly, states an analysis of evidence on the topic published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

"There is no single best approach to describing outcome after acquired brain injury during childhood, and the one chosen must be appropriate to the purpose at hand (e.g., identifying individual, population, global or domain-specific outcomes)," writes Dr. Rob Forsyth, Institute of Neuroscience, Newcastle University and Great North Children's Hospital, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK, with coauthors.

Many Treatments Available To Help Prevent Migraine Unused

A migraine is a common type of headache. With most people, the migraine is felt on only one side of the head.

Symptoms of a migraine attack may include heightened sensitivity to light and sound, nausea, auras (loss of vision in one eye or tunnel vision), difficulty of speech and intense pain predominating on one side of the head. An aura is a group of symptoms that include vision disturbances (spots, tunnel vision, loss of vision) that signals an oncoming migraine attack.

It is caused by abnormal brain activity and can be triggered by a number of factors. The cause of a migraine is still undetermined. It is believed that it involves a Central Nervous System (CNS) disorder. The CNS is made up of the brain and spinal cord. In a migraine, various stimuli or nerve signals may cause a series of neurologic and biochemical events which affect the brain's vascular system. This chain of events starting from the brain, travelling to nerve pathways affect the flow of blood in the brain and its surrounding tissues.

New guidelines: Treatments can help prevent migraine

Research shows that many treatments can help prevent migraine in certain people, yet few people with migraine who are candidates for these preventive treatments actually use them, according to new guidelines issued by the American Academy of Neurology. The guidelines, which were co-developed with the American Headache Society, announced at the American Academy of Neurology's 64th Annual Meeting in New Orleans and published in the print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

"Studies show that migraine is underrecognized and undertreated," said guideline author Stephen D. Silberstein, MD, FACP, FAHS, of Jefferson Headache Center at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology. "About 38 percent of people who suffer from migraine could benefit from preventive treatments, but only less than a third of these people currently use them."

Studying 'Brain Freeze' Could Lead To New Treatments For Different Types of Headaches

Brain freeze (sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia) is a brief painful headache that happens when cold beverage or food is consumed too quickly. It is caused by having something cold touch the roof of the mouth (palate). The nerve response fron the rapid constriction and swelling of surrounding blood vessels due to the sudden temperature change causes the pain.

Brain freeze lasts about 10 to 20 seconds although some people experience a longer duration. The pain usually is felt at the same side of the head where the cold substance touched the roof of the mouth or to both sides in the case of swallowing. People with migraines are very susceptible to brain freeze.

Consuming cold beverages or food at a slower rate prevents brain freeze.

Changes in brain's blood flow could cause 'brain freeze'

Findings may eventually lead to new treatments for other types of headache

'Brain freeze' is a nearly universal experience—almost everyone has felt the near-instantaneous headache brought on by a bite of ice cream or slurp of ice-cold soda on the upper palate. However, scientists are still at a loss to explain this phenomenon. Since migraine sufferers are more likely to experience brain freeze than people who don't have this often-debilitating condition, brain freeze may share a common mechanism with other types of headaches, including those brought on by the trauma of blast-related combat injuries in soldiers. One possible link between brain freeze and other headache types is local changes in brain blood flow.

In a new study, Melissa Mary Blatt, Michael Falvo, and Jessica Jasien of the Department of Veterans Affairs New Jersey Health Care System, Brian Deegan and Gearold O Laighin of the National University of Ireland Galway, and Jorge Serrador of Harvard Medical School and the War Related Illness and Injury Study Center of the Veterans Affairs New Jersey Health Care System use brain freeze as a proxy for other types of headaches. By bringing on brain freeze in the lab in volunteers and studying blood flow in their brains, the researchers show that the sudden headache seems to be triggered by an abrupt increase in blood flow in the anterior cerebral artery and disappears when this artery constricts. The findings could eventually lead to new treatments for a variety of different headache types.

When Head Injury or Trauma In Sports Leads To Memory Loss and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE)

A head trauma is an injury that injures the scalp, skull, or brain. The injury may be only a minor bump on the skull or a serious brain injury.

Head injuries can lead to a concussion. It is the most common type of traumatic brain injury, in which the brain is shaken. Sports athletes are susceptible to head injuries because of the extreme physical activity and contact required of in a game. It is the leading cause of death from sports-related injuries.

Each year, an estimated 300,000 sports related traumatic brain injuries (TBI) occur in the United Stated. These include concussions, conditions of temporary altered mental status. Sports and recreational activities contribute to about 21 percent of all traumatic brain injuries among American children and adolescents

Breaking point: When does head trauma in sports lead to memory loss?

A new study suggests there may be a starting point at which blows to the head or other head trauma suffered in combat sports start to affect memory and thinking abilities and can lead to chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, in the brain. The research was released today and will be presented as part of the Emerging Science (formerly known as Late-Breaking Science) program at the American Academy of Neurology's 64th Annual Meeting in New Orleans April 21 to April 28, 2012.

Chronic traumatic encephalophaty (CTE) is also known as Boxer's syndrome or Dementia pugilistica. It is called so because boxers who have been hit many times in the head suffer from this disease.