History of cluster headache

[摘要] Objective: To summarise the history of cluster headache evolving concepts and growing insights.Background: Excruciating pain, activation of the parasympathetic nervous system, and circadian rhythmicity characterisecluster headache attacks.Results: We find the oldest descriptions of patients suffering from the disorder in case reports of the 17th and 18thcenturies. Only in the 19th and early 20th centuries did physicians start hypothesizing its cause. Initially, many researcherssuspected the origin of the pain in peripheral nerves or blood vessels. However, eventually, they understood that thecause of the disease lies in the brain. In 1998, Positron emission tomography studies revealed increased activity of theposterior hypothalamus, whose role remains incompletely understood. Only recently have researchers realised that beingdiseased implies more than dysfunction. Recent studies analysed the consequences of cluster headache for each patient.Many struggle to deal with the disorder even in the absence of pain.Conclusion: Physicians have been aware of this type of pain for at least 300 years. Only when researchers studiedpathological anatomy and physiology did knowledge accrue. A more comprehensive picture of the disease severityemerged when they also considered its consequences.

[学科分类] 兽医学

[关键词] histaminic cephalalgia;history of headaches;neurology;pain;primary headache;trigeminal autonomic headache