New! Sign up for our free email newsletter.
Reference Terms
from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cluster headache

Cluster headaches are rare, extremely painful and debilitating headaches that occur in groups or clusters. Cluster headache sufferers typically experience severe headaches of a piercing quality near one eye or temple that last for fifteen minutes to three hours. The headaches are usually unilateral and occasionally change sides. Cluster headaches are classified as vascular headaches. The intense pain is caused by the dilation of blood vessels which creates pressure on the trigeminal nerve. While this process is the immediate cause of the pain, the etiology (underlying cause or causes) is not fully understood. Cluster headaches often go undiagnosed for many years, being confused with migraine or other causes of headache.

Related Stories
 


Mind & Brain News

February 15, 2026

Scientists have created the most detailed maps yet of how genes control one another inside the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease. Using a powerful new AI-based system called SIGNET, the team uncovered cause-and-effect relationships between ...
Scientists at Cedars-Sinai have uncovered a surprising repair system in the spinal cord that could open new doors for treating paralysis, stroke, and diseases like multiple sclerosis. They found that special support cells called astrocytes—located ...
A newly identified protein may hold the key to rejuvenating aging brain cells. Researchers found that boosting DMTF1 can restore the ability of neural stem cells to regenerate, even when age-related damage has set in. Without it, these cells ...
Swapping just an hour of TV a day for something more active could significantly lower the risk of developing major depression—especially in middle age. A large Dutch study tracking more than 65,000 adults over four years found that replacing 60 ...
A simple brain-training program that sharpens how quickly older adults process visual information may have a surprisingly powerful long-term payoff. In a major 20-year study of adults 65 and older, those who completed five to six weeks of adaptive ...
Depression in older adults may sometimes signal the early stages of Parkinson’s disease or Lewy body dementia. Researchers found that depression often appears years before diagnosis and remains ...
Human evolution has long been tied to growing brain size, and new research suggests prenatal hormones may have played a surprising role. By studying the relative lengths of index and ring fingers — a clue to oestrogen and testosterone exposure in ...
Autism has long been thought of as a condition that mostly affects boys, but a massive study from Sweden suggests that idea may be misleading. Tracking nearly 3 million people over decades, researchers found that while boys are diagnosed more often ...
A sweeping new review of ADHD treatments—drawing on more than 200 meta-analyses—cuts through years of mixed messaging and hype. To make sense of it all, researchers have launched an interactive, public website that lets people with ADHD and ...
Researchers at the University of Michigan have created an AI system that can interpret brain MRI scans in just seconds, accurately identifying a wide range of neurological conditions and determining which cases need urgent care. Trained on hundreds ...
A long-term study found that women who closely followed a Mediterranean diet had a much lower risk of stroke. The strongest benefits were seen in women who ate more plant-based foods, fish, and olive oil while cutting back on red meat and saturated ...
A new international study points to a specific brain network as the core driver of Parkinson’s disease. Scientists found that this network becomes overly connected, disrupting not just movement but also thinking and other bodily functions. When ...

Latest Headlines

updated 12:56 pm ET