(Wired) – Research on the visual patterns that foreshadow migraines may reveal clues on how painful headaches arise from the brain even though it has no pain receptors.

Migraines are the world’s third most prevalent cause of disability, affecting a billion people each year by some estimates. About a third experience some form of aura beforehand, often accompanied by debilitating symptoms from vomiting to vertigo, or, in worse cases, temporary blindness or hemiplegia, a paralysis down one side of the body. But recent discoveries about mechanisms that link auras and migraines could lead to potential new treatments. Martin Kaag Rasmussen, a neuroscientist at the University of Copenhagen, says research on auras may reveal new answers to the greatest riddle of migraines: How do painful headaches arise from the brain if it has no pain receptors? (Read More)