Models of neurogenic inflammation as it relates to migraine

For more than half a century, migraine was believed to be a vascular disorder with the aura attributed to cerebral vasoconstriction and ischemia and the headache to dilation and inflammation of extracranial arteries. However, there is mounting evidence that cortical spreading depression is the mechanism underlying the migraine aura and that (neurogenic) inflammation is more important than vasodilation in the migraine headache. This chapter focuses on the experimental models related to the putative migraine mechanisms of cortical spreading depression and neurogenic inflammation (Tab. 1).