Migraine and Stroke

During the middle of the 20th century, it was popular to speak of 'brain vascular spasms' as a cause of small transient episodes of neurologic dysfunction. Later, the majority of these spells were found to be caused by atherosclerosis with stenosis of large and small brain arteries often with intra-arterial embolism. Vasoconstriction was deemed a product of past imagination and not an important cause of brain ischemia or infarction.