A migraine is a headache that can cause severe throbbing pain or a pulsing sensation, usually on one side of the head. It’s often accompanied by nausea, vomiting, and extreme sensitivity to light and sound.
According to a study, cluster headache and migraine involve circadian features. Cluster headache, migraine and hormones related to circadian system include cortisol and melatonin. It has been found that headache disorders including cluster headache are highly circadian at multiple levels especially cluster headache. This reinforces the importance of the hypothalamus which involves the primary biological clock and its role in cluster headache and migraine. The sleep cycle is regulated by the hypothalamus and acts as a biological clock in regulating the sleep-inducing center. Hypothalamus is a structure deep within your brain and works as a link between your endocrine system and your nervous system. Hypothalamus function is to react to messages of the brain to keep your body in a stable state or internal balance.
It is to be noted that for the cluster headache, the data found a circadian pattern of headache attacks in 71% of people. The headache attacks occur mostly in the late hours of the night to early hours of the morning during the spring season. On the genetic level, cluster headache was associated with two main circadian genes, and five of the nine genes that increase the likelihood of having cluster headache are genes with a circadian pattern of expression. People with cluster headache have higher cortisol levels and lower melatonin levels as compared with people without cluster headache.
People with migraine showed a circadian pattern of attacks in 50% of people. The peak for attacks during the day was broad, ranging from late morning until early evening, there was a circadian low point during the night when few attacks happened. Migraine was also associated with two circadian genes, and 110 of the 168 genes associated with migraine were genes with a circadian pattern of expression.
Moreover, it has been found that people with migraine contain lower levels of melatonin in their urine compared to people without migraine. Melatonin levels are lower during a migraine attack. The treatment involves circadian rhythm which is taking medicines at certain times of the day and treatments causing circadian changes that certain medications are able to do.