Recent advances in headache research.

The understanding of the pathophysiology of primary headache disorders, especially migraine, has substantially improved over the last two decades. As a result, migraine is now mainly considered to be a disorder of the brain, rather than the vasculature or the meninges. In addition, the insights of the complex pathophysiological mechanisms and the brain structures involved in the disease facilitate the development of new therapeutic approaches. At the recent Annual Meeting of the American Headache Society in Washington (DC, USA) the latest scientific advances, as well as their clinical implications, were highlighted.