Andrew Hershey

Genomics of brain and blood: Progress and pitfalls

Summary:u2002 Gene expression profiles in brain and blood of animals and humans can be useful for diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of epilepsy. This article reviews recent progress and prospects for the future.

Genomic Expression Patterns in Menstrual-Related Migraine in Adolescents

Background.— Exacerbation of migraine with menses is common in adolescent girls and women with migraine, occurring in up to 60% of females with migraine. These migraines are oftentimes longer and more disabling and may be related to estrogen levels and hormonal fluctuations.

Accelerating Clinical Research Using Headache Common Data Elements

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) Headache Version 2.0 Common Data Elements (CDEs) are a free resource available for researchers to include in clinical trials and research studies to improve data quality and comparison across studies. In the era of big data, it is becoming increasingly important to facilitate collaboration between researchers and tools for interoperability. By working together and toward a common goal, the headache scientific community will be able to disseminate evidence‐based information to health care providers and patients suffering from headache and migraine. The goals of the Headache Version 2.0 CDEs project is to: (1) increase the efficiency and effectiveness of headache clinical research and in turn, clinical treatment; (2) improve data quality; (3) facilitate data sharing; (4) effectively gather information into significant metadata results; (5) appreciably reduce study start‐ up time; (6) and aid new clinical investigators by providing easily available study data collection forms. The Headache Version 1.0 CDEs were published in May 2012. In 2016, the Headache Version 2.0 Working Group (WG) was formed to update, reorganize, and enhance the first iteration of Headache CDEs. Updates to the Headache CDEs were revised to: reflect advancements in the field, reduce the amount of required or ‘Core’ data elements, and to make CDEs easier for investigators to use. The updated recommendations went through two review processes; an internal review by the Headache Version 2.0 WG and a public review that provided comments and feedback from users of the NINDS CDE website. The Headache CDE recommendations were circulated internally and reviewed among WG members. The recommendations were also posted on the NINDS CDE website for public comment and feedback for 6 weeks. In July 2017, the updated Headache CDEs (Version 2.0) were published on the NINDS CDE website [https://www.commondataelements.ninds. nih.gov/Headache.aspx#tab=Data_Standards]. The NINDS CDE website Headache data standards page includes 26 customizable and downloadable case report form (CRF) modules. In addition, the CDEs include 41 instrument recommendations, consisting of brief instrument description, instructions, scoring, psychometric properties, and strengths and weaknesses along with references. All CDE recommendations are classified by the strength of the recommendation into 4 categories as follows:

Managing Migraine Headaches in Children and Adolescents

SUMMARY The diagnosis and management of migraine headaches can be challenging in children and adolescents. The description of migraine in this population may include symptoms that are not typically described in adults. Treatment options for pediatric migraine is increasing, however remain limited. This article will go through the key components to diagnosing migraine in pediatric patients as well as give options for short and long-term management.