Stanford University School of Medicine has announced a planned study, led by Dr. Robert Cowan, of 700 participants to better understand the pathophysiology of headaches that resolve and those that don’t, leading to chronic headache and New Daily Persistent Headache.

The purpose of our study is to better understand disease processes and risk factors involved in onset of chronic daily headaches/Chronic Migraines. Further, The Investigators hopes to learn more about the etiology and disease mechanisms to optimize treatment strategies and determine prophylactic measures.

Participation in this research study, will include online questionnaires, a blood sample, a lumbar puncture, and a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan without contrast to measure brain activity. Participant may select to participate in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan and/ or lumbar puncture. participating in atleast 3 procedures is required (blood draw, online questionnaires , MRI and/or Spinal Tap.

The study recruits participants with headache ( any type of headaches), and patients with no headaches ( or less than 2/year). Participants do not need to have a specified headache type. All participants are asked to complete an on-line survey to characterize a number of phenotypic features felt to be relevant by the Investigators. Three independent study groups (imaging, proteomics/genetics, and phenotyping) analyze data independently and stratify the data. Then, by group analysis, correlation among the different modalities is sought to identify features that distinguish common elements that might help elucidate features that could predict which patients with episodic headache are likely to progress to chronic, and which patients without headache might be at greater risk to develop new daily persistent headache.