Dan Levy, Ph.D., of the Harvard Medical School East to Present Paper as part of the Seymour Diamond Lectureship at Conference
Chicago, IL – February 18, 2008 – The National Headache Foundation (NHF) selected a paper authored by Dan Levy, Ph.D., entitled “Mast Cell Degranulation Activates a Pain Pathway Underlying Migraine Headache” as the recipient of the Seymour Diamond Lectureship Award, an award that recognizes and honors the most significant paper in headache published in the past year. The Lectureship honors Dr. Diamond’s many contributions to the field of headache research and patient care.
The paper will be presented at the National Headache Foundation’s 5th Annual Headache Research Summit in Scottsdale, AZ on February 19, 2008. The Summit runs concurrently with the 21st Annual Practicing Physician’s Approach to the Difficult Headache Patient post graduate course. Dan Levy, Ph.D., is an associate professor of Anesthesia at Harvard Medical School and an assistant professor in the department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, both in Boston, Massachusetts.
Executive Chairman and co-founder of the NHF, Dr. Seymour Diamond explains, “In people with migraine, certain blood cells affect the nerve or pain fibers. If the cells degranulate or lose part of their substance, this can trigger migraine and prolong migraine attacks. Part of this study’s significance is that it integrates evidence that migraine is a neurological disorder with a vascular component.”
In the lectureship, Dr. Levy will discuss how intracranial headaches, such as migraines, are generally accepted to be mediated by prolonged activation of meningeal nociceptors, but the mechanisms responsible for such nociceptor activation are poorly understood. The object of this study was to examine the hypothesis that meningeal nociceptors can be activated locally through a neuroimmune interaction with resident mast cells which are granulated immune cells that densely populate the dura mater.
It is hoped that the results of the study will increase understanding of migraines and contribute to development of future treatments.
Interviews with Dr. Levy are available upon request. To receive a full copy of the study, please e-mail Kellie Fagan at kfagan@voxmedica.com.
ABOUT THE NATIONAL HEADACHE FOUNDATION
The National Headache Foundation (NHF), founded in 1970, is a non-profit organization which exists to enhance the healthcare of headache sufferers. It is a source of help to sufferers’ families, physicians who treat headache sufferers, allied healthcare professionals and to the public. The NHF accomplishes its mission by providing educational and informational resources, supporting headache research and advocating for the understanding of headache as a legitimate neurobiological disease. For more information on headache causes and treatments, visit www.headaches.org or call 1-888-NHF-5552 (M-F. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. CT).
# # #
CONTACT:
Suzanne E. Simons
Executive Director
National Headache Foundation
(312) 274-2651
ssimons@headaches.org
Kellie Fagan
Vox Medica
(215) 238-8500, ext. 1142
kfagan@voxmedica.com
