The wolframin His611Arg polymorphism influences medication overuse headache

Abstract Homozygosis for wolframin ( WFS1 ) mutations determines Wolfram syndrome (WS), and common polymorphisms of WFS1 are associated with psychiatric illnesses and dependence behaviour. To test the influence of WFS1 polymorphisms on medication overuse headache (MOH), a chronic headache condition related to symptomatic drugs overuse, we analyzed 82 MOH patients for the WFS1 His611Arg polymorphism, and performed a comparison between clinical features of Arg/Arg (R/R) and non-R/R individuals. Individuals harbouring the R/R genotype showed significantly higher monthly drug consumption ( t  = −3.504; p  = 0.00075) and more severe depressive symptoms on the BDI questionnaire ( t  = −3.048; p  = 0.003) than non-R/R. WFS1 polymorphism emerged as the only significant predictor of drug consumption, at the multivariate regression analysis ( F  = 12.277; d.f. = 1,80; p  = 0.00075, adjusted R 2  = 0.122). These results implicate WFS1 in the clinical picture of MOH, may be through an influence on need for drugs as in other conditions of abuse behaviour.