Biomarkers for Post-Traumatic Headache in Youth

Traumatic brain injury is a highly prevalent condition impacting youth that commonly results in persist headache. However, current management is limited by our ability to differentiate youth who will recover with little intervention from those who will develop a potentially debilitating headache lasting months to years. The aim of this review is to highlight promising biomarkers for identifying youth who will develop persistent post-traumatic headache.

Multiple candidate genetic, protein, imaging, electrophysiological, and digital biomarkers have been identified to help differentiate youth who will develop persistent headache from traumatic brain injury from those who will recover. Promising directions include biomarkers that overlap between traumatic brain injury and migraine. However, no biomarkers are ready for standard use in clinical care. While further work is needed to develop and validate clinically reliable biomarkers of post-traumatic headache in the pediatric population, myriad candidate biomarkers hold promise and warrant further study.