Cause of Brain Freeze Revealed

Yahoo ^ | 22 Apr 2012 | Jennifer Welsh

[shove_it]

Most people have likely experienced brain freeze — the debilitating, instantaneous pain in the temples after eating something frozen — but researchers didn't really understand what causes it, until now.

Previous studies have found that migraine sufferers are actually more likely to get brain freeze than people who don't get migraines. Because of this, the researchers thought the two might share some kind of common mechanism or cause, so they decided to use brain freeze to study migraines.

Headaches like migraines are difficult to study, because they are unpredictable. Researchers aren't able to monitor a whole one from start to finish in the lab. They can give drugs to induce migraines, but those can also have side effects that interfere with the results. Brain freeze can quickly and easily be used to start a headache in the lab, and it also ends quickly, which makes monitoring the entire event easy.

The researchers brought on brain freeze in the lab by having 13 healthy volunteers sip ice water through a straw right up against the roof of their mouth. The volunteers raised their hands when they felt the familiar brain freeze come on, and raised them again once it disappeared.

The researchers monitored the blood flow through their brains using an ultrasoundlike process on the skull. They saw that increased blood flow to the brain through a blood vessel called the anterior cerebral artery, which is located in the middle of the brain behind the eyes. This increase in flow and resulting increase in size in this artery brought on the pain associated with brain freeze.

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[shove_it]

But what about brain farts?

[BuffaloJack]

Why was good money spent on this stupid study?
What moron couldn’t put together the fact that a sinus headache and brain freeze have the same effect on a person?

[mikey_hates_everything]

[aruanan]

What moron couldn’t put together the fact that a sinus headache and brain freeze have the same effect on a person?

Probably the same one who couldn't "put together the fact" that the article was about migraine, not sinus headaches?

[khelus]

It is not news that increased blood flow to the brain causes migraines. An old time ‘remedy’ used to prevent or moderate migraines is putting your hands in warm water to divert the blood flow to your hands.

[aruanan]

They saw that increased blood flow to the brain through a blood vessel called the anterior cerebral artery, which is located in the middle of the brain behind the eyes. This increase in flow and resulting increase in size in this artery brought on the pain associated with brain freeze.

"Caffeine, because it blocks adenosine, has the opposite effects of adenosine. Caffeine constricts blood vessels in the head and neck, and increases the release of excitatory neurochemicals, so increases the rate of nerve firing. That's why caffeine is stimulating.

Caffeine has only one known mechanism of action at likely doses: occupation and blockade of adenosine receptors. Whatever the cause of a given primary or secondary headache, if caffeine relieves that headache, it does so by blocking adenosine. That tells us something important about headaches relieved by caffeine: their causal mechanism involves adenosine binding to adenosine receptors.

[submarinerswife]

Ice cream headaches HURT! Where did they get the volunteer masochists for this study?

[Mad Dawgg]

The Best Part about a Brain Freeze is how good your head feels AFTER the pain stops. But it don’t last long.

[MrTed]

I guess that explains why pressing your thumb against the roof of your mouth can stop a Brain Freeze!

[Starstruck]

An older and just as useless cure is leeches and blood-letting.

[Safetgiver]

Funny you posted this. I applied numerous times over the past three years to do a study on “The Effect of Incandescent Light Mandatory Usage and the Incidence of Visual Acuity Diminishment From 2013 to 2050.” Nobody got back to me until the third time and I was told in vague terms ‘ Shut up, a..hole. We ain’t interested’. I only asked for $30,000,000. Figured I’d be dead before they asked for it back.

[BuffaloJack]

Hey idiot, migraine, sinus headache and brain freeze are all physiologically the result of stimulation of the same nerve bundles. The study is stupid, because the authors should have done their homework and read the older studies from twenty years back, instead of re-inventing the wheel.

[Sequoyah101]

Pimping for research dollars. I wonder why this is even a story since we have known for some considerable time that brain freeze is caused by increased blood flow as the body tries to warm the area then the reduction of the flow as the precursor, cooling, diminishes.... the reason brain freeze actually happens after the cold is applied and not when it is applied.

[Lazamataz]

I hate idiots.

[CPOSharky]

Prevent brain freeze, suck your slurpy slower.

[Smokin' Joe]

He’s immune. You gotta have a brain.

[shove_it]

OUTSTANDING!!

[central_va]

It is not news that increased blood flow to the brain causes migraines. An old time ‘remedy’ used to prevent or moderate migraines is putting your hands in warm water to divert the blood flow to your hands.

THis explains why teenage boys have very few migraines.

[Ditter]

After having suffered migraines and sinus headaches most of my life, I know that they are not the same.