Migraine is a paroxysmal neurovascular disorder, which affects a significant proportion of
the population. Since dilatation of cranial blood vessels is likely to be responsible for the
headache experienced in migraine, many experimental models for the study of migraine
have focussed on this feature. The current review discusses a model that is based on the
constriction of carotid arteriovenous anastomoses in anaesthetized pigs, which has during
the last decades proven to be of great value in identifying potential antimigraine drugs acting
via a vascular mechanism. Further, the use of human isolated blood vessels in migraine
research is discussed. Thirdly, we describe an integrated neurovascular model, where dural
vasodilatation in response to trigeminal perivascular nerve stimulation can be studied. Such
a model not only allows an in-depth characterization of directly vascularly acting drugs, but
also of drugs that are supposed to act via inhibition of vasodilator responses to endogenous
neuropeptides, or of drugs that inhibit the release of these neuropeptides. We discuss the use
of this model in a study on the influence of female sex hormones on migraine. Finally, the
implementation of this model in mice is considered. Such a murine model allows the use of
genetically modified animals, which will lead to a better understanding of the ion channel
mutations that are found in migraine patients.http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/22240/110126_Chan%2C%20Ka%20Yi.pdf
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