What causes Migraine?

Migraine is a disorder of altered sensory processing in the brain. Our brain receives information from vision, hearing, smell, taste, touch, etc and integrates all that information.

Sometimes brain also classifies this information as pleasant or unpleasant.

In people with migraine, sometimes, this information gets misclassified as unpleasant for no apparent reason.

For example, simple sensations like - bright light, strong odors, certain food can get misclassified as unpleasant response in the brain.

Sometimes more complex sensory information like – sleep deprivation, changes in routine, changes in living environment, changes in relationships, etc can get misclassified as unpleasant.

When such information gets tagged as unpleasant, it can produce symptoms that we call as migraine. It can occur in almost anyone, but those individuals with some genetic predisposition are more likely to have it.