Scientists found the reason as to why light makes migraines worse and terribly afflicting. The new research on humans and rats has revealed a visual channel in the brain that underlies this light sensitivity during migraines in individuals with normal eyesight.

Migraine pain is cited to emerge from irritation of the meninges, membranes around the brain and central nervous system.

"Clinically, this research sets the stage for identifying ways to block the pathway so that migraine patients can endure light without pain", said Rami Burstein, a professor of anesthesia and critical care medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston, Mass.

The recent data claims that more than 30 million people in the United States suffer from migraine headaches, throbbing pain in one area of the head, accompanied by nausea, vomiting and other symptoms making it even worse.

Researchers undertook two groups of blind migraine sufferers, one totally blind and the other group legally blind, i. e. with impaired vision but able to make out light and dark. The patients in the first group, who couldn't sense light, showed no signs of photophobia while the second group described increased pain in light.

This highlighted that photophobia must involve the optic nerve, as in totally blind individuals, the optic nerve does not carry light signals to the brain.

The scientists expect their work to give way to therapies that can add relief to migraine sufferers.