Narrator: This is Science Today. The first headache clinic in the West with an inpatient component for diagnosis and treatment is located at the University of California, San Francisco. It's led by Dr. Peter Goadsby, a world expert on headaches.

Goadsby: We have a broad research program that we've set up here at UCSF with fundamental research, looking at the mechanisms of action of drugs and the development of new medicines in the treatment of migraine. We have a strong component of brain imaging, where we're interested in trying to see what's happening in migraine and cluster headache in the human brain, during the attacks.

Narrator: Goadsby says that this has been particularly exciting because it gives researchers a window onto these attacks, which otherwise one couldn't see.

Goadsby: The third leg to our stool is that clinical care. It's terribly important to involve a really high quality clinical program both with inpatients and outpatients, so that we really can look after all of the people who come along with disabling and troublesome headache problems.

Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.