Cephalalgia

About Cephalalgia

Cephalalgia: An International Journal of Headache — An In-Depth Profile

Cephalalgia: An International Journal of Headache is the official journal of the International Headache Society (IHS), published by SAGE on behalf of the society. Founded in 1981 and published 16 times per year, it is the international counterpart to the American Headache Society's Headache — and the journal of record for the field's most consequential documents, above all the International Classification of Headache Disorders (ICHD), whose third edition (2018) is the single most cited headache paper ever published, with more than 10,000 citations. Since January 2023 the journal has been fully gold open access: every accepted paper is immediately free to read under a Creative Commons license. Its editor-in-chief is Simona Sacco, professor of neurology at the University of L'Aquila, Italy. Every fact in this profile comes from an official source cited at the end.

History: The IHS's Journal Since 1981

Cephalalgia was established in 1981 as the journal of the International Headache Society, giving the then-young international headache community its own scholarly home. Its editorial history, recounted by current editor-in-chief Simona Sacco in her 2024 inaugural editorial, began with Ottar Sjaastad (1981–1989) and Marcia Wilkinson (1990–1992) — "the shoulders of giants," in Sacco's phrase — and continued through subsequent editorships including that of Arne May, who led the journal through the late 2010s and early 2020s and authored the 2022 editorial announcing the journal's transition to full open access.

For most of its history the journal was published by Blackwell; since January 2010 it has been published by SAGE Publications in London on behalf of the IHS, as recorded by the NLM Catalog. The SAGE era brought expanded frequency — 16 issues per year — and, in the 2010s, the launch of a sister journal, Cephalalgia Reports, an online-only open-access title for work that complements the flagship's scope, including boundary areas such as pediatrics, orofacial pain and physiotherapy. Arne May served as the founding editor-in-chief of Cephalalgia Reports.

The defining publishing event of the journal's history came in 2018 with the International Classification of Headache Disorders, 3rd edition (ICHD-3) — the product of the IHS Headache Classification Committee and the diagnostic standard for the entire field. Its publication in Cephalalgia (10,753 citations and counting, per OpenAlex) made the journal, in a literal sense, the book of record for headache diagnosis worldwide. The beta version (2013, over 8,200 citations) had already demonstrated the field's reliance on the journal as the classification's home.

In 2022 the journal announced its most significant structural change: from January 2023, Cephalalgia would become a fully gold open-access journal, with all accepted papers immediately free to view and published under a Creative Commons license, copyright remaining with authors. The move — explained by Arne May as serving the IHS's charitable mission to advance headache science, education and management worldwide — removed the paywall that had previously limited access to most of the journal's content to IHS members and subscribers.

Aims and Scope

SAGE's official submission guidelines describe Cephalalgia as providing "an international forum for original research papers, review articles and brief communications" in headache research. The journal considers the following article types:

• Original research papers — clinical and basic-science investigations across the headache spectrum
• Review articles — authoritative syntheses
• Brief communications — concise reports, with a fast-track review option available
• Editorials — short opinion pieces on issues of immediate importance to the IHS community (mostly invited; under 1,000 words; no article processing charge)
• Viewpoints/perspectives — evidence-grounded opinion pieces for debate, around 2,500 words with an unstructured abstract

A distinctive scope requirement: studies on headache and cervical pain must adhere to the terminology, diagnostic entities and criteria of the ICHD (currently ICHD-3), and studies on facial pain to the ICOP classification — the journal enforces diagnostic standardization as a condition of publication. Topically the journal spans pathophysiology, pharmacology, epidemiology, genetics, imaging, clinical trials and health-services research in headache, alongside IHS news and community correspondence.

As the IHS's official journal, Cephalalgia also publishes the society's position statements and guidelines — most recently, the IHS statement raising the standards for migraine prevention, which proposes moving beyond percentage reductions in migraine days toward a four-level framework culminating in "migraine freedom," emphasizing quality of life and full disease control made possible by CGRP-pathway and other innovative preventive therapies.

Editorial Leadership

Editor-in-Chief: Simona Sacco, MD — Professor of Neurology at the University of L'Aquila, Italy, and Director of the Clinical Neurology and Stroke Unit there. Sacco is the author of more than 300 publications spanning stroke and headache, president-elect of the European Stroke Organisation, and a former chair of the European Headache Federation guideline on monoclonal antibodies targeting the CGRP pathway for migraine prevention. Her IHS biography confirms her role as Editor-in-Chief of both Cephalalgia and Cephalalgia Reports.

In her inaugural editorial ("Cephalalgia: a legacy of excellence, a vision for tomorrow," 2024), Sacco set out her program: upholding the journal's credibility while implementing periodic rotation of editorial board members, and making diversity and inclusion fundamental guiding principles in forming the new editorial team. She also fronts the journal's monthly "Editor's Choice" series, in which she selects a favorite published paper and interviews its authors — a visible, author-friendly face for the journal's curation.

She succeeded Arne May (Department of Systems Neuroscience, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf), under whose editorship the journal completed its open-access transition. The journal's editorial office works in close partnership with the IHS, the world's leading membership organization for professionals committed to headache care.

Journal Metrics

The citation figures are dominated, uniquely among journals, by classification documents: the ICHD-3 alone accounts for a substantial share of the journal's total citations. This is a feature, not a distortion — it reflects the journal's institutional role as the classification's home. Setting the ICHD papers aside, the journal's citation profile shows durable strength in epidemiology (notably the Global Burden of Headache study), therapeutics (CGRP science, onabotulinumtoxinA trials) and pathophysiology.

Bibliographic identifiers: print ISSN 0333-1024, electronic ISSN 1468-2982 (NLM Catalog, both valid); MEDLINE abbreviation Cephalalgia.

Open Access and Publication Charges

Since January 2023 Cephalalgia has been a fully gold open-access journal: every accepted paper is published immediately free to view under a Creative Commons license, with copyright remaining with the authors. This is the most author- and reader-friendly of the publishing models among the major headache and neurology journals — no subscription barrier for readers anywhere in the world, which matters particularly for clinicians and researchers in low- and middle-income countries where headache burden is high and library budgets are thin.

Gold open access is funded by article processing charges. SAGE does not display a single journal-specific APC figure on the pages consulted for this profile; third-party listings drawing on the Directory of Open Access Journals report a list price around USD 3,000, but this is not a fee quotation. Authors should confirm the current APC, taxes, waiver and discount eligibility directly with SAGE before submitting. Note that editorials carry no article processing charge, and that authors at institutions with SAGE open-access agreements should check coverage. The open-access transition was explicitly framed by the then-editor as serving the IHS's charitable mission — making the society's science accessible to all is now part of the journal's constitutional identity, and early evidence suggests the move has broadened the journal's readership in regions where subscription access was previously limited.

Abstracting and Indexing

The journal is currently indexed for MEDLINE (NLM Catalog), making its articles searchable in PubMed. Journal records additionally report indexing in Scopus, the Science Citation Index (Web of Science), Current Contents (Clinical Medicine and Life Sciences) and BIOSIS Previews. Combined with full gold open access since 2023, this means Cephalalgia articles are both universally readable and universally discoverable — the strongest possible combination for citation and clinical uptake.

Landmark Papers

The journal's most cited papers (OpenAlex, October 2026) include the most cited headache publications ever written. All DOIs were verified to resolve at doi.org:

1. Headache Classification Committee of the International Headache Society (IHS): The International Classification of Headache Disorders, 3rd edition (2018). The diagnostic standard for headache medicine worldwide; the most cited paper in the journal's history with over 10,700 citations. doi:10.1177/0333102417738202
2. The International Classification of Headache Disorders, 3rd edition (beta version) (2013). The field-testing version of ICHD-3, itself cited over 8,200 times — more than most journals' flagship papers. doi:10.1177/0333102413485658
3. The Global Burden of Headache: A Documentation of Headache Prevalence and Disability Worldwide — Stovner L.J. et al. (2007). The landmark epidemiological synthesis establishing headache disorders among the leading causes of disability globally; cited over 2,400 times. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2982.2007.01288.x
4. OnabotulinumtoxinA for Treatment of Chronic Migraine: Results From the Double-Blind, Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Phase of the PREEMPT 1 Trial — Aurora S.K., Dodick D.W. et al. (2010). Key trial evidence for Botox in chronic migraine prevention; cited over 1,000 times. doi:10.1177/0333102410364676
5. CGRP May Play a Causative Role in Migraine — Lassen L.H. et al. (2002). Early human evidence implicating calcitonin gene-related peptide in migraine pathogenesis — the conceptual seed of the CGRP therapeutic revolution; cited over 1,000 times. doi:10.1046/j.1468-2982.2002.00310.x

Taken together, these five papers tell the story of modern headache medicine: a causal hypothesis (CGRP, 2002), the population burden (2007), a new therapy validated (2010), and the diagnostic framework that organizes it all (2013, 2018) — every stage published in this journal.

Cephalalgia and Cephalalgia Reports: Choosing Between Them

Authors in the headache space now face a two-journal SAGE/IHS family. Cephalalgia is the flagship: 16 issues a year, the ICHD's home, the venue for classification, major trials, epidemiology and IHS position statements, fully gold open access since 2023. Cephalalgia Reports, launched in the 2010s as an online-only open-access companion, publishes work that complements the flagship — including studies from boundary areas such as pediatrics, orofacial pain and physiotherapy — and explicitly aims to showcase original insights that validate and extend existing studies. Both are official IHS journals under Simona Sacco's editorship. As a rule of thumb: field-defining or classification-adjacent work belongs in the flagship; sound, useful, well-executed studies — including replications and boundary-area work — will find a faster home in Reports.

The ICHD and the Journal's Classification Role

It is worth pausing on what it means for a journal to be the home of a field's classification. The International Classification of Headache Disorders is not merely a highly cited paper — it is the diagnostic language in which every headache trial is designed, every clinic letter is written and every epidemiological survey is coded. Publishing the ICHD-3 (and its 2013 beta) in Cephalalgia made the journal the authoritative version of record: when diagnostic criteria are disputed, researchers cite these pages. That role also shapes the journal's peer review — referees and editors enforce ICHD terminology as a condition of publication — which in turn improves the comparability of the headache literature as a whole. Few journals can claim such direct infrastructural influence on their discipline.

The IHS Connection: A Society Journal's Advantages

Being the official journal of the International Headache Society gives Cephalalgia structural advantages that independent journals lack. IHS members form a built-in global readership and reviewer pool; the society's congresses — including the International Headache Congress — generate themed content and debates that flow into the journal; and the society's committees (classification, guidelines, education) publish their outputs here, guaranteeing a steady stream of field-defining documents. For authors, society-journal status means a paper is read by the exact community most likely to cite and apply it. For the IHS, the journal is the permanent record of the society's scientific life — which is why the 2023 open-access transition mattered beyond business models: it made the society's record freely available to the worldwide community the society exists to serve, including clinicians and researchers without institutional subscriptions.

Submitting to Cephalalgia

• Submission system. Manuscripts are submitted through the SAGE submission portal linked from the journal's homepage (journals.sagepub.com). Read the SAGE submission guidelines in full before submitting — manuscripts not conforming to the guidelines may be returned, and the journal no longer accepts pre-submission inquiries.
• Diagnostic discipline. Headache and cervical-pain studies must use ICHD terminology, entities and criteria; facial-pain studies must use ICOP. Non-standard diagnostic language is grounds for return.
• Article types. Original research papers, review articles and brief communications are the core; editorials (mostly invited, no APC) and viewpoints/perspectives (2,500 words, unstructured abstract, max 50 references) provide shorter routes. A fast-track review option exists — see the guidelines for details.
• Ethics. The journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and recommends the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals. Standard requirements on ethics approval, consent, trial registration and disclosure apply.
• Open access and fees. All accepted papers publish gold open access under a Creative Commons license; confirm the current APC and waiver eligibility with SAGE.
• Editor's Choice. Exceptional papers may be selected for the monthly Editor's Choice feature with an author interview — a visibility bonus worth bearing in mind when framing a submission's significance.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Cephalalgia?

Cephalalgia: An International Journal of Headache, the official journal of the International Headache Society, published by SAGE since 2010.

Who is the editor-in-chief?

Simona Sacco, MD, professor of neurology at the University of L'Aquila, Italy — confirmed by her IHS biography and her 2024 inaugural editorial. She leads both Cephalalgia and Cephalalgia Reports.

Is Cephalalgia open access?

Yes — fully gold open access since January 2023. All accepted papers are immediately free to read under a Creative Commons license.

What are the ISSNs?

Print ISSN 0333-1024 and electronic ISSN 1468-2982 (NLM Catalog, both valid).

How often is it published?

16 issues per year.

Where was the ICHD-3 published?

In Cephalalgia (2018) — it is the journal's most cited paper, with over 10,700 citations.

Is it indexed in PubMed?

Yes — currently indexed for MEDLINE (abbreviation Cephalalgia), and covered by Scopus, Web of Science, Current Contents and BIOSIS Previews.

How much is the APC?

SAGE does not display a single journal-specific figure on the pages consulted for this profile; third-party DOAJ-derived listings report around USD 3,000 — confirm the current fee with SAGE.

What is the difference between Cephalalgia and Cephalalgia Reports?

Cephalalgia is the flagship IHS journal (classification, major trials, position statements); Cephalalgia Reports is its online-only open-access companion for complementary and boundary-area work. Both are edited by Simona Sacco.

What was published by Blackwell vs SAGE?

The journal was previously published by Blackwell Publishing; SAGE has published it on behalf of the IHS since January 2010.

Sources

• Submission guidelines, Cephalalgia (SAGE) — official aims & scope, article types, fast-track option, ICHD/ICOP requirement, COPE membership, ICMJE recommendations
• "Cephalalgia: a legacy of excellence, a vision for tomorrow" — Simona Sacco's inaugural editorial (Cephalalgia 2024, doi:10.1177/03331024231223663): assumes EIC role; prior editors Sjaastad (1981–1989), Wilkinson (1990–1992); editorial program
• Simona Sacco biography (International Headache Society, ihs-headache.org) — EIC of Cephalalgia and Cephalalgia Reports; 300+ publications; ESO president-elect
• "Cephalalgia and Open Access" — Arne May's 2022 editorial (doi:10.1177/03331024221116071): gold OA transition January 2023, CC licenses
• IHS news: Cephalalgia Editor's Choice series (June 2024) and Cephalalgia top reviewers 2024 — Sacco as EIC
• IHS position statement on migraine prevention standards (Newswise, 2026) — published in Cephalalgia; four-level migraine-control framework
• Knowledgespeak (2010): SAGE/IHS launch of Cephalalgia Reports; Cephalalgia published by SAGE and IHS since 2010; Arne May founding EIC of Reports
• NLM Catalog (NCBI) — began 1981; ISSNs 0333-1024/1468-2982; MEDLINE current indexing Y; SAGE London since Jan 2010
• OpenAlex source record — 8,503 works, 298,518 citations, h-index 179; top-cited works for landmark papers
• doi.org — verification that all 5 landmark DOIs resolve (302 to SAGE journal pages)