Why Do People Get Ice Cream Headaches?

Understanding and Preventing Ice Cream or Brain Freeze Headaches

Jun 15, 2009

Ice cream headaches occur when people eat cold food or drinks such as ice cream or "Slurpees", which can cause stabbing pain in the temples and frontal lobe of the brain.

Occasionally, when people eat very cold food or drinks, such as ice cream, milkshakes or slurpees, they may suffer form a stabbing and painful ice cream headache, sometimes called ‘brain freeze’. To understand why humans suffer from ice cream headaches, it is important to know a bit about taste buds and how messages about taste are relayed to the brain.

The Taste Buds And Nerves Of The Tongue

Taste buds are located in several areas of the tongue. Humans recognize four basic flavors, sweet, sour, salt or bitter, and different taste buds are receptive to specific flavors.

The tongue has three different nerves that transmit information about taste, and it is the glossopharyngeal nerve that sends information from the taste buds located at the back of the tongue. It is this nerve that is involved in the ice cream headache. The information from these nerves is sent to the medulla oblongata in the brain stem. Next it relays the message to the thalamus and then to processing centers in the parietal lobe of the brain to be identified.

Why Do People Get Ice Cream Headaches?

Ice cream headaches occur when cold food touches the taste buds at the back of the tongue and palate before it is swallowed. As the cold food touches this area, it sets off the glossopharyngeal nerve (the 9th cranial nerve), which controls sensation and registers sensation from the pharynx, palate or tonsils.

This and other nerves trigger the vessels that control the amount of blood flow to the head and, and the cold causes constrictions of the blood vessels causing a release of blood into the head.

This quick swelling of blood vessels is what causes a headache. Pain is usually felt behind one eye, in the temples or the mid-frontal area of the head. Ice cream headaches are usually a stabbing, severe ache that can last between 20 seconds to several minutes, although it is rare for one to last longer then one minute.

To prevent ice cream headaches, it is best to eat ice cream and other cold foods and drinks slowly, and allow them to warm in the mouth for a few seconds before swallowing. Avoid allowing the cold food to touch the palate and back of the throat if possible.

Campbell and Reece, 2002, 'Sensory and Motor Mechanisms', in Biology 6th edition, ed. Benjamin Cummings, San Francisco, chap 49.

The copyright of the article Why Do People Get Ice Cream Headaches? in Nervous System is owned by Roberta Goli. Permission to republish Why Do People Get Ice Cream Headaches? in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.