The American Heart Association (AHA) and the American Headache Society (AHS) have for the first time partnered to co-fund an Innovative Project Award in 2026 focused on the relationship between cardiovascular/cerebrovascular health and migraine and other headache disorders. The collaboration aims to accelerate research at the intersection of heart and brain health and to support innovative, high-risk/high-reward science that could reveal new mechanisms and therapeutic targets.
The Innovative Project Award provides $200,000 over two years. It emphasizes novel approaches and supports proposals spanning basic science, clinical research and population health. Eligible projects could address any age group across the lifespan, from children and adolescents to middle-aged and older adults. The award prioritizes research likely to open new avenues for prevention, diagnosis or treatment at the interface of headache disorders and vascular health.
The co-funded 2026 award was granted to Juliana Navia Pelaez, Ph.D., an assistant professor at Saint Louis University School of Medicine. Her project, titled “Neurogenic Priming of Perivascular Macrophages by Migraine-Associated Peptides Increases Stroke Risk,” explores whether repeated migraine attacks alter brain-resident immune cells that guard cerebral blood vessels.
Pelaez’s team will investigate whether frequent migraine episodes keep these immune cells chronically activated, potentially weakening blood vessels and increasing vulnerability to stroke. The study will identify which migraine-associated signals activate perivascular macrophages and compare their responses after stroke to responses in individuals without migraine. The research aims to determine whether strategies that calm overactive brain immune cells or block the activating signals could reduce stroke risk among people with chronic migraine.
Andrea M. Harriott, M.D., Ph.D., at Massachusetts General Hospital received funding to study how cortical spreading depolarizations—events associated with migraine with aura—affect the endothelial phenotype, neovascularization and collateral remodeling. The project will examine whether long-term exposure to mechanisms underlying migraine with aura leads to persistent, adverse molecular and functional changes in brain blood vessels that could contribute to stroke and heart attack risk.
Investigators will evaluate protein changes in vascular endothelial cells, the formation and function of new blood vessels, and how collateral blood flow adapts, to clarify whether repetitive migraine-related processes produce durable vascular harm.
Matthew T. Bender, M.D., at the University of Rochester will develop a novel multi-scale, quantitative MRI framework to assess the glymphatic–hemodynamic axis in idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH). IIH is a headache disorder often affecting overweight women of childbearing age and is linked to elevated intracranial pressure from excess cerebrospinal fluid.
This project will create MRI methods to visualize the brain’s waste removal system (glymphatic pathways) and blood vessels without contrast or invasive procedures. Researchers will scan IIH patient brains before and after venous stenting to determine how opening obstructed veins affects waste clearance and cerebral blood flow.
Neil Dani, Ph.D., at Vanderbilt University will study the choroid plexus as a potential mediator linking obesity and increasing prevalence of migraine. The choroid plexus produces cerebrospinal fluid and serves as an interface for signals passing between the body and brain.
The project will characterize inflammation patterns, identify cellular rewiring and immune signaling changes at the choroid plexus, and test whether clinically approved drugs such as acetazolamide can reduce swelling and pain signaling in animal models of migraine and obesity. The work aims to clarify how peripheral inflammatory signals might enter the brain and exacerbate headache disorders.
Collectively, these projects examine multiple potential mechanisms connecting headache disorders and vascular health: immune cell activation around blood vessels, direct vascular effects of migraine phenomena, impaired glymphatic clearance, and inflammatory signaling via the choroid plexus. The research is intended to illuminate pathways that could explain observed associations—such as increased stroke risk in some people with migraine—and to identify interventions that reduce vascular vulnerability in people with chronic headache disorders.
The AHA emphasizes that funding discovery research is central to its mission; the organization reported it has funded more than $6.3 billion in cardiovascular, cerebrovascular and brain health research since 1949, positioning it as a major non-governmental supporter of research in these fields.
The American Heart Association describes itself as dedicated to longer, healthier lives and to advancing equitable health through research funding, advocacy, and resources. The American Headache Society is a professional society focused on improving care and advancing research in headache disorders. This co-funding partnership reflects their shared goal of advancing brain health research at the interface with cardiovascular science.
The source release listed media contacts for the American Heart Association (Cathy Lewis, cathy.lewis@heart.org) and the American Headache Society (Tanya Kiniry, tkiniry@talley.com). For public inquiries, the AHA provided the phone number 1-800-AHA-USA1.