A STUDY OF THE EFFECT OF THE PULSATILE VENTRICULAR PRESSURE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF HYDROCEPHALUS

Abstract

Hydrocephalus is a condition which occurs when an excessive accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid in the brain causes enlargement of the ventricular cavities. Although known instances of hydrocephalus date back to the time of Hippocrates, the process by which hydrocephalus develops is still not well understood. Recently, the pulsations of the cerebrospinal fluid due to the heartbeats have been suggested as a possible mechanism causing ventricular expansion. The aim of the present paper is to study the changes in the brain geometry due to the ventricular deformations caused by the pulsatile ventricular pressure. In our model, we used the real geometry of the brain taken from MR images and we assumed that the brain parenchyma behaves as a non-linear hyper-elastic solid. Our results show that our model is able to correctly predict the large displacements seen in hydrocephalic brains. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time such a model has been used for modeling, simulating, and studying hydrocephalus.