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- A new study found that migraine patients had faster brain aging than people without the condition, especially those with chronic migraines.
- Researchers say migraines may contribute to lasting changes in the brain, but overlapping factors like poor sleep and stress likely play a role too.
- Experts say migraines shouldn’t be dismissed, and treatment can help protect long-term brain health and quality of life.
A new study published in Brain Communications linked migraines—a condition affecting an estimated 40 million Americans—to faster brain aging, suggesting that migraines may be associated with lasting changes in the brain.
What the Study Found
Previous research has found an association between migraines and brain health declines, including an increased risk of cognitive impairment and dementia. The new study assessed migraine patients’ brain age gaps—the difference between a person’s chronological age and how old their brain appears to be. Greater brain age gaps have been linked to a higher risk of dementia and cognitive decline.
The study included 110 migraine patients and 70 control participants without migraine in Taiwan. Using MRI scans, the researchers assessed more than 400 brain regions, then processed the data with a computer model to estimate participants’ brain age.
Results showed that the brain age gap of migraine patients was 4.24 years higher than that of the control group, and chronic migraine patients (people with 15 or more headache days a month) had the largest gaps. The findings align with a study from 2023, which also found that chronic migraine patients had significantly larger brain age gaps.
Of the 442 brain regions studied, 66 showed signs of faster aging. These areas included the prefrontal cortex, cingulate cortex, parietal and temporal cortices, and the amygdala, which are involved in pain processing, emotional regulation, and cognition.
Neurologists already think these regions are central to migraines, which gives the study more credibility, said Eric Anderson, MD, PhD, a board-certified neurologist and chief medical officer at Lin Health. The study also used patients who had not taken migraine preventive medications for at least the past three months, Anderson noted, reducing the potential confounding variable of medication use.
“That said, I would caution against overselling the conclusions,” Anderson told Health. “It cannot prove migraine is literally aging the brain in a causal sense. The effect sizes were modest, there was overlap between groups, and the population came from a specialty headache clinic, which most likely selected patients with more severe disease.”
Why Migraines May Be Linked to Faster Brain Aging
During a migraine attack, the brain undergoes widespread changes that can affect sensory processing, sleep, stress, inflammation, and other functions throughout the body, Anderson explained. “If someone is having frequent migraines for years, it is not surprising that the brain may begin to show measurable structural adaptations,’ he said.
However, many conditions that frequently accompany migraine also play a role in brain health and aging. These include poor sleep, inflammation, medication overuse, chronic stress, depression, and anxiety. “I don’t think migraine alone is speeding up brain aging,” Nada Hindiyeh, MD, a board-certified neurologist, headache specialist, and chief medical officer at Haven Headache and Migraine Center in California, told Health.
Anderson agreed: “Chronic migraine likely contributes to accelerated biologic brain aging in some patients, especially when attacks are frequent and poorly controlled. But I do not think this means every migraine patient is on a path toward neurodegeneration or dementia.”
What to Do If You Get Migraines
More research is needed to tease out the link between migraines and cognitive decline, but experts said you still shouldn’t minimize your migraines. Developing a treatment plan as early as possible can help reduce any potential impacts on long-term brain health and improve your everyday life.
Migraine treatment options have advanced over the years, Anderson said, now including Botox, behavioral therapies, and CGRP inhibitors, the first medication developed specifically to prevent migraines. Treatment often involves lifestyle interventions too, focusing on sleep regularity, exercise, stress management, and nervous system regulation.
“It can include finding the right acute and preventive medication, making sure lifestyle and supplements are optimized, and making sure you address your headaches with your clinician,” Hindiyeh said.
“[Patients] tell themselves migraines are just something they inherited and now have to live with, which is a mistake,” Anderson added. “If someone is having frequent headaches, escalating medication use, cognitive fog, or significant disability, they deserve a real treatment plan.”
