You may sleep together brain halt by one of its other names : anice emollient headache , a cold - stimulus headache , orsphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia , but no matter what you call it , it hurts like hell .
Brain freeze is brought on by the speedy use of cold beverages orfood . Ice creamis a very common causal agent of nous pain , with about one third of a indiscriminately selected universe yield to ice ointment cephalalgia .
What causes ice cream headaches?
As far back as the late sixties , researchers pinned the blame on the same vascular mechanisms — rapid tightness and dilation of blood vessels — that were creditworthy for the glory and pulsatile pain phases of migraine headaches .
When something cold like ice emollient touches the cap of your backtalk , there is a rapid cooling system of the line of descent vessel there , make them to constrict . When the blood vessels warm up again , they experience rebound dilation . The dilation is sensed by pain receptor and pain signals are sent to the learning ability via the trigeminal nerve . This nerve ( also have it off as the 5th cranial spunk , the 5th mettle , or just V ) is responsible for sensation in the face , so when the botheration signals are received , the brain often interpret them as coming from the forehead and we perceive a head ache .
With head freeze , we ’re perceiving hurting in an area of the eubstance that ’s at a length from the site of the actual wound or response of painful stimulus . This is a oddity of the body call “ referred pain , ” and it ’s the understanding people often experience pain in their neck , shoulders , and/or back instead of their chest during a heart flak .
Tips for Preventing Brain Freeze
Brain freeze is harmless , but you probably want to avoid the infliction if you could . Here are a few hack :
Discover More Facts About the Human Body :
A version of this tale was published in 2009 ; it has been updated for 2025 .
