Harold G. Wolff Lecture Award
This award is for the best paper on headache, head or face pain, or the nature of pain itself. The paper may be concerned with basic research, clinical studies or both and must include new data to be considered for the award. The recipient will be invited to present the paper at the Annual Scientific Meeting.
This award was named in honor of Dr. Harold G. Wolff, a pioneer in the field of headache medicine.
Congratulations to the 2025 recipient!
Nathaniel M. Schuster, MD
UCSD Center for Pain Medicine
La Jolla, CA
Vaporized cannabis versus placebo for the acute treatment of migraine: final results from a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover trial
Past Recipients
2024
Chia-Chun Chiang, MD
Advancing Towards Precision Migraine Treatment: Predicting Responses to Preventive Medications with Machine Learning Models Based on Patient and Migraine Features
2023
Christina L. Szperka, MD, MSCE, FAHS
Patient headache questionnaires can improve headache diagnosis and treatment in children
2022
2021
2020
Antonio Russo, MD, PhD
Cognitive Networks Disarrangement in Patients with Migraine Predicts Cutaneous Allodynia
2019
2018
Richard B. Lipton, MD, FAHS
Identifying Natural Subgroups of Migraine Based on Profiles of Comorbidities and Concomitant Conditions: Results of the Chronic Migraine Epidemiology and Outcomes Study
2017
Richard B. Lipton, MD, FAHS
Allodynia Is Associated with Initial and Sustained Response to Acute Migraine Treatment: Concourse Level Results from the American Migraine Prevalence and Prevention (AMPP) Study (OR21)
2015
Todd J. Schwedt, MD, MSCI, FAHS
Accurate Classification of Chronic Migraine via Brain Magnetic Resonance Imaging
2014
Christoph Schankin, MD
The Relation Between Migraine, Typical Migraine Aura and ‘Visual Snow’
2013
Farooq Husain Maniyar, MB BS, MD, MCRP
Investigating the premonitory phase of migraine with H215O PET
2012
Robert Shapiro, MD, PHD
Casein Kinase lō Mutations in Familial Migraine with Aura
2011
Michael L. Oshinsky, PhD
Spontaneous Trigeminal Allodynia in Rats: A Model of Primary Headache
2010
Gretchen E. Tietjen, MD
Adverse Childhood Experience: Migraine and Vascular Biomarkers
2009
Simon Akerman, PhD
Oxygen Inhibits Neuronal Activation in the Trigeminocervical Complex after Stimulation of Trigeminal Autonomic Reflex, but Not Via Direct Dural Activation of Trigeminal Afferents
2008
Marcelo Bigal, MD, PhD
Acute Migraine Medications and Evolution from Episodic to Chronic Migraine: A Longitudinal Population-Based Study
2007
Sheena K. Aurora, MD
Brainstem Dysfunction in Chronic Migraine as Evidenced by Neurophysiological and Positron Emission Tomography (PET) Studies
2006
Nancy E.J. Berman, PhD
Serotonin in Trigeminal Ganglia of Female Rodents: Relevance to Menstrual Migraine
2005
Rami Burstein, PhD
Terminating Migraine with Allodynia and Ongoing Central Sensitization
2004
Peter J. Goadsby, MD, PhD
Posterior Hypothalmic and Brainstem Activation in Hemicrania Continua.
2003
Rami Burstein, PhD
Differential Effects of Triptans on Physiological Properties of Peripheral and Central Trigemino Vascular Neurons Reveal a Mechanism of Action Critical for Terminating Migraine
2002
Anan Srikiatkhachorn, MD
5-HT2A Receptor Activation and Nitric Oxide Synthesis: A Possible Mechanism Determining Migraine Attacks
2001
K.M.A Welch, MD
Periaqueductal Gray Matter Dysfunction in Migraine: Cause or the Burden of Illness?
2000
Richard B. Lipton, MD
Sumatriptan for the Range of Headaches in Migraine Sufferers: Results of the Spectrum Study
1999
S.K Aurora, MD
The Occipital Cortex is Hyperexcitable in Migraine: Evidence from TMS, fMRI, and MEG Studies
1998
Ann I. Scher, MS
Prevalence of Frequent Headache in a Population Sample
1997
R.A. Ophoff, MD
Involvement of a CA2+Channel Gene in Familial Hemiplegic Migraine and Migraine With and Without Aura
1996
F. Michael Cutrer, MD
Actions of Valproate and Neurosteroids in a Model of Trigeminal Pain
1994
Peter J. Goadsby, MD, PhD
Central and Peripheral Trigeminovascular Activation in the Cat is Blocked by the Serotonin (5HT) – 1D Receptor Against 311C90
Naomi Breslau, PhD
Migraine and Major Depression: A Longitudinal Study
1993
S.J. Peroutka, MD, PhD
Anti-migraine Drug Interactions with Cloned Human 5-hydroxytryptamine Receptor Subtypes
1992
Jean Schoenen, MD, PhD
Exteroceptive Suppression of Temporalis Muscle Activity in Patients with Chronic Headache and in Normal Volunteers: Methodology, Clinical and Pathophysiological Relevance
1991
S.J. Peroutka, MD, PhD
Anti-migraine Drug Interactions with Cloned Human 5-hydroxytryptamine Receptor
1990
G.L. Barkley
Magnetoencephalographic Studies of Migraine
1989
N.M. Ramadan
Low Brain Magnesium in Migraine
1988
Rajiv Joseph, MD
Cystolic Ionized Calcium Homeotosis in Platelets: An Abnormal Sensitivity to PAF-Activation in Migraine
1986
Rajiv Joseph, MD
ATP Hyposecretion from Platelet Dense Bodies – Evidence for the Purinergic Hypothesis and a Marker of Migraine
1984
Jacqueline De Belleroche, PhD, MSCBA
Metabolic Abnormalities in Cluster Headache
1983
J.W. Lance
Brainstem Influences on the Cephalic Circulation: Experimental Data from Cat and Monkey of Relevance to the Mechanism of Migraine
1982
Jes Oleson, MD
Spreading Cerebral Oligemia in Classical and Normal Cerebral Blood Flow in Common Migraine
1981
R.C. Peatfield, MD
The Effect of Infused Prostacyclin in Migraine and Cluster Headache
1980
Bruno Anselmi, MD
Endogeneous Opioids in Cerebrospinal Fluid and Blood in Idiopathic Headache Sufferers
1979
John Stirling Meyer, MD
Abnormal Cerebrovascular Reactivity in Patients with Migraine and Cluster Headache
1978
Fumihiko Sakai, MD
Regional Cerebral Hemodynamics During Migraine and Cluster Headache Measured by the 133 xe Inhalation Method
1977
Sunanda V. Deshmukh, MD, FFARCS
Cyclic Changes in Platelet Dynamics and the Pathogenesis and Prophylaxis of Migraine
1976
K.M.A. Welch, MD
A Biochemical Comparison of Migraine and Stroke
1975
Ottar Sjaastad, MD
Histamine and its Relations to Vascular Headache, with Particular Reference to Cluster Headache
1974
Zdenka Kalendovsky, MD
Complicated Migraine: Its Association with Increased Platelet Aggregability and Abnormal Plasma Coagulation Factors
1973
Pramod R. Saxena, MD
Selective Vasoconstriction in the Carotid Bed by Ergotamine: Possible Relevance to its Anti-Migraine Action
1972
Brian W. Somerville, MD, MRACP
The Influence of Progesterone and Estradiol Upon Migraine
1971
Gerald S. Barolin, MD
Bioelectric Findings in Migraine
1970
Yoshio Hosobuchi, MD
Descending Trigeminal Tractotomy Neurophysiological Approach
1969
Ernst Thonnard-Neumann, MD
Some Interrelationships of Vasoactive Substances and Basophile Leukocytes in Migraine Headaches
1968
Edda Hanington, MB, BS
The Role of Tyramine in the Etiology of Migraine and Related Studies on the Cerebral Extracerebral Circulations
1967
James W. Lance, MD, FRACP
The Control of Cranial Arteries by Humoral Mechanisms and its Relation to the Migraine Syndrome
1966
C. Norman Shealy, MD
The Physiological Substrate of Pain
Federigo Sicuteri, MD
Vasoneuractive Substances in Migraine
Dr. Harold G. Wolff
Dr. Harold G. Wolff was one of few who influenced the scientific thought of a generation and whose influence continues to this day. The Harold G. Wolff Lecture Award for the American Headache Society was established by Donald J. Dalessio, MD, one of Dr. Wolff’s former students and colleagues. The award is given annually to that person who contributes the best original paper on headache, head pain, or on the nature of pain itself.
Dr. Harold G. Wolff was born in New York City in 1898. He received his medical education at Harvard and trained in psychiatry at Johns Hopkins. In 1932 he was recruited as the first chairman of the new division of Neurology at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center.
His emphasis at the time was on protective and defensive reaction patterns of individual behavior that lead to disease, and the meaning of precipitative events and environmental setting in illness. His particular interest was in the personality features and reactions of migraineurs.
Dr. Wolff ’s appointment to that pioneering post was based on his broad education which included training in neurology and cerebral circulation at Harvard; experience in Austria and America on the humoral transmission of nervous activity; study in psychiatry at Johns Hopkins; work with Pavlov in Russia in his Conditioned Reflex Laboratory; and study with Desmond Curran on delirium. He went on to become one of the most experienced clinical and experimental neurologists in the United States serving as editor of The Archives of Neurology, and President of the American Neurological Association. Dr. Wolff continued as Chairman of the Department of Neurology at Cornell until his death in 1962.
Dr. Wolff ’s enormous energy and curiosity led him to question many procedures and techniques then in use and to institute many revolutionary ideas. Early in his career, he began to clarify the neurogenic control of vasoconstriction and vasodilatation in headache. He began to build his hypotheses of stress and disease, particularly with respect to migraineurs. His meticulous experimentation contributed to the understanding of migraine. He showed the biphasic vascular reactions of vasoconstriction and vasodilatation and demonstrated that both intracranial and extracranial structures are involved in the reaction pattern. Most importantly, he discovered neurokinin, the neurohumor elaborated in the tissues resulting from excitation in the central nervous system. His last hypothesis stating that disordered vaso-activity in this syndrome reflected an adaptive response to a threat to the integrity of the brain itself would have been put to further test had he lived longer. He was ahead of his time in linking the relationship between man’s goals, his methods of achieving them, and the conflicts thus engendered as a direct link to many aspects of disease, tissue damage and death.
It is a tribute to Dr. Wolff that many years after his death articles still appear about him and his research. In the late 1950’s, he established an institute to study human ecology and anticipated behavioral methods for treatment of headache which have only recently been accepted widely. Harold G. Wolff viewed the study of man in his setting as especially crucial in determining the fine line between health and disease. Much of his work was concerned with the idea that during or following circumstances perceived as chronically threatening or unacceptable, primitive patterns of behavior and physiologic activity are evoked which may produce, when experienced over time, patterns of disease.
