|
When a person has a
headache, several areas of the head can hurt, including a network of
nerves that extends over the scalp and certain nerves in the face, mouth,
and throat. The muscles of the head and the blood vessels found along the
surface and at the base of the brain are also sensitive to pain because
they contain delicate nerve fibers. The bones of the skull and tissues of
the brain itself never hurt because they lack pain-sensitive nerve fibers.
The ends of these pain-sensitive nerves, called nociceptors, can be
stimulated by stress, muscular tension, dilated blood vessels, and others
triggers of headache. Vascular headaches (migraines are a kind of vascular
headache) are thought to involve abnormal function of the brain's blood
vessels or vascular system;muscle contraction headaches appear to involve
the tightening or tensing of facial and neck muscles; and traction and
inflammatory headaches are symptoms of other disorders, ranging from brain
tumor to stroke to sinus infection.
|
|
