The Neuroscience Institute
Insurance plans accepted
We participate with most major health insurance plans and national transplant networks.
Prepare for your visit
We want to make sure you know what to expect before you arrive.
My care philosophy
Headache is a complex disorder and every patient develops headache by a different pathway, featuring their own unique genes, social factors, hormones, and environment. To ensure the best treatment of my patients, I strive to identify these factors and in combination with current scientific evidence on headache treatment, develop the best plan for the child and family to reduce the burden of headache.
Get to know Jennifer Hranilovich, MD
Experience and background
My primary clinical interest is in headache, but I also treat other neurologic conditions in children such as epilepsy.
Undergraduate 2009
University of California–Los Angeles (CA)
Medical School 2013
Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine
Residency 2018
University of Utah Medical Center Program, Child Neurology
Residency 2018
University of Utah Medical Center Program, Pediatrics
Fellowship 2019
Brigham and Women's Hospital/Children's Hospital/Harvard Medical School Program, Headache Medicine
For Patients:
My research interests are primarily focused on the way in which hormones such as estrogen and testosterone influence the development of headache in puberty as well as the changes in brain structure and function that show us how this development happens. A particular group of patients in which I study this is transgender youth, with my primary research technique involving imaging of the brain using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
For Referring Providers:
My primary clinical interest is in the neuroimaging of sex differences in brain development. The nexus with headache comes with the fact that the overall prevalence of headache in women is about twice that in men. This difference in prevalence starts in adolescence when estrogen rises significantly in girls, and many think that estrogen plays a role in this sex difference in headache, particularly migraine. Evidence from prior studies suggests that the rise in average estrogen levels at puberty guides the development of brain structure and function, including areas key to headache. Challenges in studying this clinically are that estrogen is one of several hormones that change at puberty and that estrogen is released cyclically. Clinical studies have shown that in adult women the monthly drop in estrogen level often triggers migraine. Thus, separating the overall effect of estrogen on brain development and headache from the effect of cycling estrogen is difficult. A unique and increasing population in which change in estrogen at puberty is isolated from other hormones and in which estrogen is given in a steady state rather than cycling is the transfemale patient population. Treatment for transfemale adolescent girls includes suppression of testosterone at puberty and initiation of estrogen. My research seeks to support the hypothesis that exposure to estrogen at puberty increases the risk for incidence of headache. Thus transfemale male-to-female youth who receive estrogen will have a higher incidence of headache than cis-gender boys who do not receive estrogen. I am engaged in study of this hypothesis by evaluating headache incidence and brain structure and function in male-to-female transfemale youth and by comparing this to matched cis-gender boys who do not receive estrogen. My goal is to increase our understanding of how and when estrogen changes risk of developing headache in puberty.
Faculty member of
Provider's location(s)
Patient ratings and reviews
Learn more about patient ratings and reviews
Meet other experts
Patient ratings and reviews are not available
Why?
Patient ratings and reviews are not available
Why?
Neurology - Pediatric
Patient ratings and reviews are not available
Why?
Patient ratings and reviews are not available
Why?
Neurology - Pediatric
Patient ratings and reviews are not available
Why?
Patient ratings and reviews are not available
Why?
Patient ratings and reviews are not available
Why?