Related Experiment Video
Updated: Apr 24, 2026
3D-Neuronavigation In Vivo Through a Patient's Brain During a Spontaneous Migraine Headache
Published on: June 2, 2014
Exploratory metabolomic profiling in migraine with PFO reveals dysregulated pathways and highlights indoleacrylic
Tiantian Luo1,2,3, Qian Xi4, Qian Wang5
1Department of Cardiology, Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital, School of Medicine, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610031, China.
Abstract:
Patent foramen ovale (PFO) is increasingly linked to migraine, yet its systemic metabolic effects remain unclear. Using untargeted metabolomics, we analyzed arterial and venous plasma from migraine patients with PFO (PFO-M, n = 30) and venous plasma from healthy controls (n = 17). We identified 211 differentially expressed metabolites and multiple pathways involving branched-chain amino acids, neurosteroids, and tryptophan metabolism. The gut microbiota-derived metabolite indoleacrylic acid (IA) was inversely associated with migraine severity and was reduced in female PFO-M patients. In an independent cohort (n = 220), lower IA remained negatively associated with PFO-M (OR = 0.97, 95% CI 0.96-0.98), and the combination of IA and hs-CRP improved discriminative performance compared with either marker alone (AUC = 0.722). Together, these exploratory findings suggest systemic metabolic alterations in PFO-comorbid migraine and highlight IA as a candidate metabolic feature, supporting a potential role of gut-brain axis dysregulation.
