Potential treatment targets for migraine: emerging options and future prospects

Abstract

Migraine is a leading cause of disability worldwide. Despite the recent approval of several calcitonin gene-related peptide-targeted therapies, many people with migraine do not achieve satisfactory headache improvement with currently available therapies and there continues to be an unmet need for effective and tolerable migraine-specific treatments. Exploring additional targets that have compelling evidence for their involvement in modulating migraine pathways is therefore imperative. Potential new therapies for migraine include pathways involved in nociception, regulation of homoeostasis, modulation of vasodilation, and reward circuits. Animal and human studies show that these targets are expressed in regions of the CNS and peripheral nervous system that are involved in pain processing, indicating that these targets might be regarded as promising for the discovery of new migraine therapies. Future studies will require assessment of whether targets are suitable for therapeutic modulation, including assessment of specificity, affinity, solubility, stability, efficacy, and safety.