Male-female comparison of vasomotor effects of circulating hormones in human intracranial arteries

Hypothalamic, sex hormones and the pancreas hormone (amylin) receptors are expressed in the human intracranial artery walls. The vasomotor responses revealed no sex differences, however contractile responses to vasopressin was higher and more potent in MMA compared to CCA when pooling data from both sexes. Overall, the hormones estrogen, progesterone and oxytocin, which drop in circulating levels at onset of menstruation, only showed modest vasomotor responses as compared to CGRP. This suggests that their role in inducing menstrual migraine attacks is not directly related to vasomotor responses.