Why Ice Cream Causes Brain Freeze
Brain freeze is an unavoidable risk when eating ice cream. It’s the painful consequence of eating something cold too quickly, and it’s an experience that most of us know very well. But what is it and why does it actually happen?
Brain freeze is a type of headache.
Brain freeze, which is technically called sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia, is a type of headache just like a migraine is a type of headache. It’s just a quickly onset one that also happens to dissipate rapidly.
When you drink or eat something cold, like ice cream, you’re changing the temperature at the back of your throat, where the juncture of the internal carotid artery and the anterior cerebral artery is found. The internal carotid artery feeds blood to the brain and the anterior cerebral artery is where brain tissue starts. Basically, it’s full of blood vessels. The change in temperature causes a dilation and contraction of the vessels, and this is the reason we feel pain.
