Referred pain from disorders of the cervical spine can be perceived as headache. The
mechanism is convergence between trigeminal afferents and afferents of the upper three
cervical nerves in the trigeminocervical nucleus. Cervicogenic headache cannot be
diagnosed on clinical grounds alone. The definitive criterion is complete relief of
pain after controlled diagnostic blocks of cervical structures or their nerve supply.
The most rigorously studied example of cervicogenic headache is third occipital headache.
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