The American Heart Association (AHA) and the American Headache Society (AHS) have joined forces for the first time to co-fund an Innovative Project Award aimed at understanding how migraine and other headache disorders affect cardiovascular and cerebrovascular health. The award provides $200,000 over two years to support high-risk, high-reward research that could lead to new ways to prevent stroke and heart disease in people with migraines.
This year's co-funded award goes to Dr. Juliana Navia Pelaez, an assistant professor at St. Louis University School of Medicine, for her project "Neurogenic Priming of Perivascular Macrophages by Migraine-Associated Peptides Increases Stroke Risk." Pelaez's research explores whether repeated migraine attacks overactivate the brain's immune cells that guard blood vessels, potentially weakening them and increasing stroke risk. "If migraines happen over and over, these immune cells might stay 'on' for too long. When this happens, they might accidentally make the blood vessels weaker," Pelaez said. "If the vessels get weaker, the brain might have a harder time protecting itself from a stroke." The project will examine which signals during a migraine activate these immune cells and how they respond after a stroke, compared to when no migraine occurs.
In addition to the co-funded award, the AHA has funded three other Innovative Project Awards to advance research at the intersection of headache disorders and cerebrovascular health. Dr. Andrea M. Harriott of Massachusetts General Hospital will study how cortical spreading depolarizations—a mechanism of migraine with aura—affect blood vessel cells and collateral remodeling. Dr. Matthew T. Bender of the University of Rochester will develop a new MRI method to investigate the brain's waste removal system in idiopathic intracranial hypertension, a headache disorder that primarily affects overweight women of childbearing age. Dr. Neil Dani of Vanderbilt University will explore how the choroid plexus may link obesity and migraine through inflammatory pathways, and whether existing drugs like acetazolamide can reduce swelling and pain signaling.
These projects underscore the shared commitment of the AHA and AHS to advancing brain health research. The AHA has now funded more than $6.3 billion in cardiovascular, cerebrovascular and brain health research since 1949, making it the largest non-profit, non-government supporter of heart and brain health research in the U.S. The AHS, a professional society dedicated to headache care, emphasizes scientific research as a primary function. For more information, visit heart.org or americanheadachesociety.org. The full release is available on www.newmediawire.com.
