Causal relationship between primary headache mediated by circulating cytokines and cerebral cortex structure: a mediation Mendelian randomization study

Abstract Inflammation may be related to structural changes in the cerebral cortex. We aimed to explore whether cytokines mediate the link between these changes and primary headache. The summary statistics of genome-wide association study (GWAS) related to migraine and its subtypes, cluster headache were derived from the FinnGen Release 10 database, and tension-type headache data was from the GWAS Catalog. Ninety-one cytokines were obtained from genome-wide pQTL mapping data. GWAS data on cortical surface area (SA) and thickness (TH) came from the ENIGMA Consortium. The methods of Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis included the inverse-variance-weighted (IVW), MR-Egger, and weighted median. Migraine reduces the SA of paracentral[β = −1.3645, OR = 0.2555, 95%CI (0.0660, 0.9898)] by fibroblast growth factor-23(FGF-23), with an intermediate ratio (IR) of 38.13%. Migraine may reduce the TH of superior parietal[β = −0.0029, OR = 0.9971, 95%CI (0.9943, 0.9999)] by interleukin (IL)-15RA, with an absolute IR of 11.11%. Migraine without aura may reduce the TH of rostral anterior cingulate[β = −0.0005, OR = 0.9995, 95%CI (0.9991, 0.9999)] by IL-18R1, with an IR of 11.63%. FGF23 and IL-15RA are associated with reduced SA or TH in migraine, while IL-18R1 is associated with increased TH in migraine without aura.