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Massive "plumes" of glutamate, a key neurotransmitter, surging in the brain could help explain the onset of migraine with aura--and potentially a broad swath of neurologic disease, including stroke and traumatic brain injury--according to an international study led by University of Utah Health scientists.
The study, which was conducted in laboratory mice, found that an abnormal release of glutamate into the extra-cellular space--the area between brain cells--can spark spreading depolarizations, tsunami-like waves of activity that spread across the brain in migraine and other nervous system disorders.
"This is something new under the sun," says K.C. Brennan, M.D. a U of U Health professor of neurology and the study's co-corresponding author (with Dr. Daniela Pietrobon of the University of Padova in Italy). "Glutamate plumes are a completely new mechanism of migraine, and it's a good bet that they are players in other diseases of the nervous system."