UTD Researchers Tries to Decipher How Nitric Oxide Triggers Migraines

Gregory Dussor, PhD

Dr. Gregory Dussor, Eugene McDermott Professor and department chair of neuroscience in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS), has found a mechanism that might help explain why nitric oxide causes migraines.

“We’ve known for a long time that when you give migraine patients a compound that generates nitric oxide, such as nitroglycerin, it triggers a migraine attack in a very large number of them,” he said. “It’s one of the first pharmacological migraine triggers ever documented, and it’s a robust, consistent phenomenon. But the mechanism is unclear. If we discover what it is, we might have a good drug target.”