Article Text

Download PDFPDF
Research paper
TRPV1, CGRP and SP in scalp arteries of patients suffering from chronic migraine

Abstract

Objective The transient receptor potential vanilloid type-1 receptor (TRPV1) and the neuropeptides calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) and substance P (SP) appear to be differently involved in migraine pain. A role of neurovascular scalp structures is also suggested by several data. We performed a quantitative study of TRPV1-like immunoreactive (LI), CGRP-LI and SP-LI innervation of scalp arterial samples from patients affected with chronic migraine (CM).

Methods Short segments of scalp arteries were collected from 17 participants undergoing vascular surgery for treatment-resistant CM and from 6 controls who underwent neurosurgery for various indications. The immunoreactivity of the arterial innervation to TRPV1, CGRP, SP and to the pan-neuronal marker protein gene product 9.5 (PGP9.5) was examined. Immunoreactive nerve fibres in vessel cross-sections were quantified by computerised image analysis.

Results A significant increase of TRPV1-LI nerve fibres was found in the arterial wall from CM compared with control patients (p<0.05), while no significant difference was found for CGRP and SP.

Conclusions This study yields the first evidence for the existence of a TRPV1-LI innervation in human scalp arteries and provides the first quantitative assessment of the TRPV1-LI, CGRP-LI and SP-LI innervation of those vessels. The increase of TRPV1-LI periarterial nociceptive fibres of scalp arteries may represent, at least in some participants, a structural condition favouring CM (and possibly migraine), for example, by causing a higher sensitivity to algogenic agents.

  • MIGRAINE
  • HEADACHE

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request Permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

Linked Articles