Effect of Paeonia lactiflora, a traditional Chinese herb, on migraines based on clinical application and animal behavior analyses

Abstract Background Paeonia lactiflora (PL) was widely used for pain relief, but its effects on migraine headaches remain unclear. Purpose The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of PL on migraine headaches. Methods First, we found that PL was frequently used in Taiwan for headache treatment based on data from Taiwan’s National Health Insurance Research Database. Migraine was induced through the intraperitoneal injection (i.p.) of nitroglycerin (NTG, 10 mg/kg) in rats. Pretreatment with PL was administered orally 30 min prior to the NTG i.p. Migraine headache behavior was observed by video-recordings. Finally, the rats were sacrificed and brain was removed for immunohistochemistry staining analysis. Results The frequency and total time spent rearing up and sniffing in exploratory behavior, and walking in locomotor behavior, were reduced in the NTG group compared with the control group (all p  Conclusion Pretreatment with PL ameliorated migraine headache behaviors in the NTG-induced migraine rat model, suggesting pretreatment with PL is beneficial for migraine headache treatment. This effect of PL is related to the decrease of c-fos and CGRP in the TNC. However, still there are too many methodological limitations which need to be overcome in further experiments to support the data.