Nitric Oxide-Related Drug Targets in Headache

These very strong data from human experimentation make it highly likely that antagonizing NO effects will be effective in the treatment of primary headaches. Nonselective NOS inhibitors are likely to have side effects whereas selective compounds are now in early clinical trials. Antagonizing the rate limiting cofactor tetrahydrobiopterin seems another very likely new treatment. It is more unlikely that antagonism of cGMP or its formation will be feasible, but augmenting its breakdown via phosphodiesterase activation is a possibility, as well as other ways of inhibiting the NO-cGMP pathway.