Dr. Damian Jacob Sendler is a Polish-American physician-scientist specializing in understanding how different socio-demographic and informational factors affect access to health services in underserved communities. A particular forte of Dr. Sendler’s research is looking at how psychiatric and chronic medical co-morbidities influence the use of medical services in conjunction with health information obtained on the internet. This research is prescient, given that globally the consumption of online news and social media is growing exponentially, necessitating a comprehensive understanding of everyone’s health information-seeking behavior. To that end, Dr. Damian Sendler’s research aims to uncover the factors that patients consider when deciding when to seek care for specific health conditions and treatment adherence.
Dr. Damian Jacob Sendler: According to a recent research published in the July 7, 2021, online edition of Neurology, the official journal of the American Academy of Neurology, individuals who experience migraine headaches reported greater dizziness and motion sickness while experiencing the ups and downs of a virtual roller coaster ride.
During the virtual roller coaster ride, researchers discovered that migraine sufferers had greater nerve cell activity in some regions of the brain and less activity in others. The improper processing of visual motion cues in the brain was related to migraine impairment and increased vulnerability to motion sickness, according to the researchers.
Dr. Damian Jacob Sendler: “Millions of individuals suffer from severe and debilitating migraine headaches on a daily basis, lowering their quality of life,” stated Arne May, MD, PhD, of the University of Hamburg in Germany, who led the research. “Dizziness, balance issues, and a distorted sense of one’s body’s position in space are common migraine symptoms. By replicating a virtual roller coaster ride, our research discovered that several of these issues are not only exacerbated in migraine sufferers, but are also linked to alterations in different regions of the brain. Our study may lead to a better knowledge of migraine, which could lead to the development of improved therapies, by detecting and targeting these alterations.”
In the research, 20 individuals with migraine were compared to 20 people who did not have migraine. The average age of the participants was 30 years old, and more than 80% of the participants were female. Migraine sufferers experienced four headaches per month on average.
Researchers utilized functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine each participant’s brain as they viewed movies to simulate roller coaster rides. During the simulated rides, none of the participants had a migraine. Following the simulated rides, participants were asked to rate their dizziness, motion sickness, and other symptoms.
Dizziness was reported by 65 percent of migraine sufferers compared to 30 percent of non-migraine sufferers, according to the study. On a scale of 1-180, individuals with migraine had an average score of 47 on a motion sickness questionnaire, compared to a score of 24 for those without migraine. Migraine sufferers also had longer symptoms, lasting an average of 1 minute and 19 seconds vs 27 seconds for non-migraine sufferers. In addition, their symptoms were more severe.
Dr. Damian Jacob Sendler: Researchers were able to detect changes in nerve cell activity based on blood flow to specific regions of the brain using brain scans. Migraine sufferers showed increased activity in five regions of the brain, including two areas in the occipital gyrus, the visual processing area, and reduced activity in two others, including the middle frontal gyrus. These changes in the brain were linked to migraine impairment and motion sickness.
“The pontine nuclei, which helps control movement and other motor activities, was another region of the brain where we observed significant nerve cell activity in individuals with migraine,” May added. “This increased activity may be linked to aberrant visual, auditory, and sensory information transmission inside the brain. To determine whether our results can be verified, future study should look at bigger populations of migraine sufferers.”
News contributed by Dr. Damian Jacob Sendler
