What is the source of painful headaches?

Since your brain tissue and the bones in your skull do not contain pain-sensitive nerve endings, the source of painful headaches comes from other parts of your head that do have nerve endings. Those include the network of blood vessels that supply the surface and base of your brain. This network of blood vessels is wrapped with highly sensitive nerve fibers that can fire off pain signals.

Pain-sensitive nerves are also located in the scalp and the muscles of your head, as well as other places in your head. Muscular tension, inflammation, stress and the dilation or constriction of blood vessels also can trigger the pain-sensitive endings of these nerves to transmit signals and can activate the pain centers in your brain