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Chronic migraine: Genetics or environment?
Author(s) -
Chalmer Mona Ameri,
Rasmussen Andreas Høiberg,
Kogelman Lisette J. A.,
Olesen Jes,
Hansen Thomas Folkmann
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
european journal of neurology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.881
H-Index - 124
eISSN - 1468-1331
pISSN - 1351-5101
DOI - 10.1111/ene.14724
Subject(s) - migraine , chronic migraine , medicine , odds ratio , genetic association , genotype , cohort , genome wide association study , bioinformatics , gene , genetics , single nucleotide polymorphism , biology
Background The transition from episodic migraine to chronic migraine, migraine chronification, is usually a gradual process, which involves multiple risk factors. To date, studies of the genetic risk factors for chronic migraine have focused primarily on candidate‐gene approaches using healthy individuals as controls. Aims and methods In this study, we used a large cohort of migraine families and unrelated migraine patients ( n > 2200) with supporting genotype and whole‐genome sequencing data. We evaluated whether there are any genetic variants, common or rare, with a specific association to chronic migraine compared with episodic migraine. Results We found no aggregation of chronic migraine in families with a clustering of migraine. No specific rare variants gave rise to migraine chronification, and migraine chronification was not associated with a higher polygenic risk score. Migraine chronification was not associated with allelic associations with an odds ratio above 2.65. Assessment of effect sizes with genome‐wide significance below an odds ratio of 2.65 requires a genome‐wide association study of at least 7500 chronic migraine patients. Conclusion Our results suggest that migraine chronification is caused by environmental factors rather than genetic factors.