Another Possible New Migraine Treatment? Migraine and HDAC6!

A new study is highlighting what may be yet another new frontier for migraine-fighting medicine – something with the headline-grabbing name, HDAC6 inhibitors!

It is the CGRP related drugs that are, of course, grabbing all the headlines these days. But migraine patients are still in urgent need of better treatments, and a better understanding of migraine itself. And so the research continues.

HDAC6 the short name for histone deacetylase 6, an enzyme in your body which has a very important role in individual cells, allowing them to adapt and communicate. It’s also important in the regulation of gene expression (the reading and using of genetic information).

Without getting into too much detail, histone deacetylase inhibition is actually something that is already being used in medicine, such as romidepsin which is used as a cancer treatment (cutaneous T-cell lymphoma). There is also an interest in using HDAC6 inhibitors to fight chronic pain conditions.

But more than that, medications that inhibit histone deacetylase are also used for epilepsy and migraine. One example is valproate, which is used for both epilepsy and migraine.

But medications specifically designed as HDAC6 inhibitors for migraine would be something new.

The recent study from the Department of Psychiatry, University of Illinois at Chicago and published in eLife, showed in mouse models that an HDAC6 inhibitor may be able to restore proper balance in the body during a migraine attack.

To read more, the study abstract is here: Neuronal complexity is attenuated in preclinical models of migraine and restored by HDAC6 inhibition. ScienceDaily also has a short but more detailed introduction to this study here: Possible novel migraine therapy.