Migraine Science Collaborative

Dr. Frank Porreca is a professor in the Departments of Pharmacology and Anesthesiology at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona.  His recent work has focused on sexually dimorphic mechanisms promoting female pain conditions, including headache disorders and pelvic pain. He has discovered that nociceptive sensory neurons from rodents, non-human primates and humans are functionally male or female, allowing for the discovery and development of precision medicine strategies to treat pain differently in either men or women.  For this Migraine Science Collaborative podcast, Dr. Frank Porreca discusses his career path, some of his recent research on sex differences in migraine and pain [see MSC related news here and here], and more.

Chia-Chun Chiang, MD, is an assistant professor of neurology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. Her clinical and research interests center on the application of AI to the study of migraine and vascular neurology, as well as exploring the connections between headaches and various cerebrovascular/cardiovascular disorders. Dr. Chiang recently received the 2024 American Headache Society (AHS) Harold G. Wolff Award, and the 2024 American Academy of Neurology Harold Wolff-John Graham Award. For this Migraine Science Collaborative podcast, Dr. Chiang spoke with freelance writer Fred Schwaller shortly after the 66th Annual Scientific Meeting of the AHS, which took place in June 2024 in San Diego. She discusses her interest in using AI to address important questions in the migraine field, her research in this area – including findings presented at the AHS meeting  – and much more.

MSC recently had the opportunity to take part in a Vets First Podcast, a podcast series hosted by Levi Sowers and Brandon Rea, University of Iowa, Iowa City, US. Neil Andrews, executive editor of MSC and a science journalist, and the Vets First Podcast hosts take turns interviewing each other about migraine, science communications, and other topics.

Editor's note: Dr. Anne Luebke, PhD, is a researcher and a jointly appointed associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Her lab focuses on auditory and vestibular efferent systems. One of Dr. Luebke's interests is vestibular migraine, which is the focus of this MSC podcast. Here, Dr. Luebke spoke with Heba Hani, RPh/MBA, a pharmacist who specializes in migraine, at the 2023 International Headache Congress in Seoul, South Korea, to discuss her work using preclinical models to investigate vestibular migraine.

Elizabeth Seng, PhD, is an associate professor of psychology at Yeshiva University in New York City, US. Seng, who is a clinical psychologist and researcher, broadly focuses her work on behavioral management of pain and headache disorders, particularly migraine. She is interested in the psychosocial factors associated with migraine attack onset, higher attack frequency, and migraine-related disability. She is also interested in improving acute medication adherence. Seng recently co-authored a Lancet Neurology review article discussing the role of lifestyle factors in migraine and how behavioral change interventions can address them. In this MSC podcast, Seng speaks with Kayt Sukel, a freelance science writer based outside of Houston, Texas, to discuss some of those lifestyle factors, including stress, sleep, diet and physical activity, and the best way to implement behavioral change to improve migraine.

Dawn Buse, PhD, is a licensed psychologist who specializes in helping people live well with chronic diseases including migraine, other headache diseases, and chronic pain. She is a clinical professor of neurology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, and an assistant professor in the clinical health psychology doctoral program of the Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology. She also conducts research on migraine, pain and stress, among other conditions. In this MSC podcast, Dr. Buse speaks with freelance science writer Fred Schwaller, PhD, to discuss how she began her career as a migraine researcher and clinical psychologist, the use of behavioral therapies for migraine, and some of her most important epidemiological research findings.

Editor's note: Serena Orr, MD, is a clinician-scientist and assistant professor of pediatrics and clinical neurosciences at the University of Calgary, and an attending pediatric neurologist at the Alberta Children's Hospital (ACH), where she directs the pediatric headache program in the section of neurology. Dr. Orr's research focuses on improving the acute treatment of migraine in children and adolescents and also aims to identify biopsychosocial predictors of outcomes in children and adolescents with migraine, and how these may be used to apply stratified care models to migraine prevention.  In this MSC podcast she speaks with MSC freelance writer Kayt Sukel to discuss her path to pediatric migraine research, some of her recent work on the role of anxiety and depression in kids with migraine, how adverse childhood experiences affect pediatric migraine, as well as the need for more funding of headache research. 

In a recent study published in Cephalalgia on September 7, 2022, an international group of researchers reported results from a global online survey on perceived barriers to career progression in the headache field. The survey focused on career obstacles in four domains: professional recognition, opportunities in scientific societies, clinical practice, and salary and compensation. Nearly 600 professionals in the global headache field responded to the survey, with gender emerging as the most important barrier in nearly all of the four domains. Country of birth also surfaced as a key barrier. In this MSC podcast, Irene de Boer, first author of the study, along with senior author Gisela Terwindt, sit down with Lincoln Tracy, a research fellow and freelance writer from Melbourne, Australia, to delve deep into the findings from their new work.

In this podcast, neuroscientist Amynah Pradhan chats about the promise of targeting delta opioid receptors as a way to treat migraine – without the adverse consequences of current drugs. She also discusses her recent work on neuronal complexity, her thoughts about the migraine field more broadly, and more.

Dr. Gregory Dussor is Professor and Chair of the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Texas at Dallas. His work focuses on understanding how the sensory innervation of the meninges contributes to headache disorders. Using several preclinical models, his group has identified numerous targets within this afferent nociceptive system including several that may contribute to sex differences observed in migraine.  In this Migraine Science Collaborative podcast, Dussor speaks with MSC Executive Editor Neil Andrews to discuss his path to studying migraine, his research contributions so far – especially his work to develop better animal models of migraine – what's going well in the migraine field and what needs to get better –  and even his love of coffee and the band Phish.