Generative chatbots in headache education and research: A narrative review

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots, powered by large language models, are emerging as transformative tools with diverse applications in healthcare. This narrative review aims to explore their unique potential for addressing significant gaps in headache education and research, with a main focus on primary headache disorders, a substantial global health burden. In headache education, chatbots can provide tailored, individual information to patients. This improved accessibility could increase the adherence to treatment, reducing the risk of chronification, resulting in a better quality of life. Similarly, clinicians, particularly non-headache specialists, can access a wealth of up-to-date information on headache disorders, including clinical training simulations, which would facilitate reaching a correct diagnosis and optimize treatment. In headache research, generative chatbots can assist by streamlining data collection and analysis, aiding complex experimental setups, and supporting clinical trials, thus accelerating the discovery pipeline. While generative chatbots have demonstrated significant promise for revolutionizing the headache field, challenges persist, with the most important being ensuring data accuracy and privacy. Future developments should focus on pre-training with headache-specific curated databases, multimodal integration, and establishing robust regulatory and ethical frameworks among users (patients, researchers, clinicians), and AI developers to address its limitations. With responsible development, generative chatbots hold the potential to bridge current gaps in headache education and meaningfully advance medical research from bench to bedside, and beyond.