More Than a Headache - Migraine is a Nervous System Disorder of Sensory Processing

Reviewed: June 2026  |  Peek Practice, Grey Lynn, Auckland, New Zealand

Nigel Peek, MSc Chiro (SA) | DIANM, Chiropractic Orthopaedist | PGDip HealSc Pain & Pain Management - Dist. (Otago) | Peek Practice, Grey Lynn, Auckland

Migraine is not a headache that happens to be severe. It is a disorder of how the nervous system handles incoming information, it is a complex brain and nervous system disorder with a range of complex manifestations that go well beyond headache. Understanding it this way changes what migraine is, who it affects, and why it travels with problems that may at first seem unrelated.

This continues a theme from earlier posts at Peek Practice: pain is an output of the nervous system, not a read-out of damage, and some nervous systems are more prone to generating it. Migraine is the clearest window into that idea.

Sensory Overwhelm

Every waking moment, the nervous system is met by two streams of information. The first is the world outside - light, sound, smell, touch, and movement. The second is the body within - the gut, the heartbeat, the breath, the sense of balance. The first stream is called exteroception; the second, interoception. Both have to be handled, moment to moment, billions of sensory inputs from within and out have to be processed by the brain, mostly this data is not consciously experienced (luckily – as we would not be able to function if this was the case). Only what matters should be brought to our attention.

This so called regulation or Inhibition of incoming signals is an active job. The nervous system does real work to quieten signals it has judged unimportant - the technical word for that work is inhibition. A well-regulated system inhibits well: you do not feel your clothing against your skin, hear the hum of the room, or notice your own digestion, because the system maintains a lid on the things that aren’t important. However, when inhibition is weak, that so called irrelevant information “escapes” – allowing extra noise to activate areas of the brain that then may warrant attention regardless of their importance.

Migraine Is a Problem of Weak Inhibition

Migraine is an inherited tendency for the brain to lose control of its inputs. The migraine nervous system is hyper-responsive to light, sound, smell, and mechanical inputs – is slower to settle when the same signal repeats - it does not adapt to stimuli the way an ordinary system does. Critically, these features are present between attacks, not only during them. The migraine nervous system does not fully reset; it idles closer to the edge, with less inhibition in reserve.

Seen this way, a migraine attack is the system tipping over a threshold it was already sitting near. The triggers people recognise - a bright screen, a strong smell, a missed meal, a poor night's sleep, a barometric shift - are not causes so much as the last push to a system with little margin to spare. This is why migraine behaves as a disorder of sensory processing rather than a problem confined to the head.

The Body's Inner Signals Count Too

Migraine is not only about the world outside. It is also about how the system reads the body. Nausea, a sensitive gut, light-headedness, and a wave of autonomic symptoms are part of the same event - the inner stream of information left un-quietened and over-reacted to. Contemporary thinking frames part of migraine as a problem of interoceptive prediction: the nervous system continually forecasts what the body is about to do, and in migraine those forecasts and the responses to them run awry.

Interestingly, recent work suggests the raw signal itself is not necessarily louder - interoceptive accuracy can be broadly normal - but the interpretation of it, and the behavioural response to it, is altered. The volume is not the problem so much as the failure to turn it down. This helps explain why migraine so often keeps company with irritable bowel, dizziness, and autonomic symptoms: they are not separate coincidences, but the same weak inhibition showing up in the body's internal world. When the balance system is drawn in, the picture may present as a  vestibular migraine or an expression of inner ear pressure changes as may be the case in Meniere’s disease - one reason a vestibular migraine expert may looks at the whole sensory system, not the inner ear alone.

Why Migraine Permeates a Whole Life

Migraine is ranked among the most disabling conditions worldwide, and second among neurological disorders. That ranking is not built on the hours of an attack alone. According to the breadth of the literature, migraine co-occurs with insomnia, anxiety, depression, and gut disorders at roughly three times the background rate, and the more frequent the attacks, the more these companions cluster.

The part that “just a headache” misses is the life lived between attacks: the anticipation of the next one, the cognitive fog, the careful management of ordinary environments most people never think about. A supermarket aisle, an open-plan office, a fluorescent-lit waiting room is not neutral for a nervous system that cannot quieten its inputs. The condition shapes work, sleep, mood, and relationships long after the pain has gone. Treating only the attack, and ignoring the system that produces it, addresses the smallest part of the burden.

ADHD and the Same Regulatory Theme

ADHD is, at its core, a difficulty with regulation - holding back what is irrelevant, steadying a response among competing demands, restraining an impulse before it runs. That is the same regulatory signature seen in migraine, expressed in a different domain. The literature shows the two cluster together: migraine is around three times more common in children with ADHD, and notably in their mothers as well, and adults with ADHD show altered pain responses that partially normalise with stimulant medication.

One could infer a shared theme running beneath these conditions - a nervous system that inhibits and regulates incoming information less efficiently, whether that information is a sensory signal, a body signal, or a stream of thought. This is not to collapse distinct diagnoses into one, nor to suggest that everyone with migraine has ADHD or the reverse. It is to notice the regulatory thread, because that thread is what shapes a sensible assessment and a sensible plan.

The Quieter Members of the Family

Full blown Migraine could be considered one of the more obvious expressions of the sensitivity spectrum. Chronic tension-type headache (CTTHA), and recurrent neck and back and body pain are often less obvious signs of a system primed to be more responsive - expressions of a nervous system with a weaker off-switch, generating pain at a lower threshold of input than the tissue state alone would warrant i.e. mechanical stimuli from every day loading and bending are interpreted as damage or threat with the consequence being a life of more pain. The International Association for the Study of Pain now groups conditions of this kind under the term nociplastic pain, and clinicians increasingly speak of chronic overlapping pain conditions to capture how often they appear together in the same person.

The person with migraine, recurrent neck pain, a sensitive gut, and broken sleep is likely of this disposition, rather than a person with separate conditions.

What This Means When We Assess You

Recognising this pattern changes the assessment. There are two questions, not one. The first is structural: is anything mechanically wrong - a joint, a nerve, a tissue - that warrants specific diagnosis and management. The second is regulatory: why is this nervous system generating pain, or amplifying sensation, at this level of input in the first place. A thorough assessment has to answer both, because answering only the first leaves the larger driver untouched.

This is often the value of a second opinion on persistent headache, neck, or back pain: the first question asked is not only which structure is at fault, but why the system is responding the way it does. At Peek Practice our Chiropractic Orthopaedist in Auckland is well placed to hold both questions at once, because the combination of an expert diagnostic skill set with formal postgraduate training in pain brings the structural examination and the regulatory picture into the same consultation. Where a structural problem exists, it is diagnosed and managed directly. Where a more sensitive nervous system with weak inhibition is a significant part of the picture, management includes explaining the mechanism in plain terms, a graduated return to activity and sensory load, attention to sleep and autonomic regulation, or in the case of further investigation – a referral to a musculoskeletal, neurology or pain medicine specialist.

The useful question to start is not only where the pain is. But why is this nervous system shaping this persons behaviour in such a manner.

FAQs

Is migraine just a severe headache?

No. Migraine is a disorder of how the nervous system processes and regulates information - from the outside world and from  within the body. Headache is only one symptom among many, including sensitivity to light and sound, nausea, dizziness, and cognitive fog, gut disturbance etc.

How are migraine and ADHD connected?

They appear to share a regulatory theme - a nervous system that inhibits incoming information less efficiently. The research shows migraine is around three times more common in children with ADHD and their mothers. They are distinct conditions, not the same one, but the overlap is informative.

What is interoception and why does it matter in migraine?

Interoception is the sense of the body's internal state - gut, heartbeat, breath, balance. In migraine, the reading of and response to these inner signals is altered, which helps explain the nausea, gut sensitivity, and dizziness that accompany attacks and often persist between them.

Why do my migraine, neck pain, and gut symptoms occur together?

They may be expressions of the way the nervous system responds to its environment rather than separate problems. Conditions of this kind are grouped as nociplastic pain and chronic overlapping pain conditions, reflecting shared central nervous system mechanisms rather than coincidence.

Can a Chiropractic Orthopaedist help with migraine?

Yes. A full assessment at Peek Practice, Grey Lynn, Auckland evaluates both the structural and the regulatory dimensions of a presentation, explains the mechanism, guides graded management, and coordinates referral to neurology or vestibular services where appropriate.

References

Goadsby PJ, Holland PR, Martins-Oliveira M, Hoffmann J, Schankin C, Akerman S. (2017). Pathophysiology of migraine: a disorder of sensory processing. Physiological Reviews, 97(2), 553-622.

de Tommaso M, et al. (2014). Altered processing of sensory stimuli in patients with migraine. Nature Reviews Neurology, 10(3), 144-155.

Charles A. (2018). The pathophysiology of migraine: implications for clinical management. Lancet Neurology, 17(2), 174-182.

Burch RC, Buse DC, Lipton RB. (2019). Migraine: epidemiology, burden, and comorbidity. Neurologic Clinics, 37(4), 631-649.

Buse DC, et al. (2020). Comorbid and co-occurring conditions in migraine and associated risk of increasing headache pain intensity and frequency (MAST Study). Journal of Headache and Pain, 21, 23.

Kutuk MO, et al. (2018). Migraine and associated comorbidities are three times more frequent in children with ADHD and their mothers. Brain & Development, 40(10), 857-864.

Miglis MG. (2018). Migraine and autonomic dysfunction: which is the horse and which is the jockey? Current Pain and Headache Reports, 22, 19.

Fitzcharles MA, et al. (2021). Nociplastic pain: towards an understanding of prevalent pain conditions. The Lancet, 397(10289), 2098-2110.