Hydrocephalus can describe a wide range of problems associated with abnormal flow and pressure of fluid in and around the brain. Cerbrospinal fluid(CSF), produced near the centre of the brain, flows through a series of cavities (called ventricles) and channels to the outside of the brain (the subarachnoid space) and around the spinal column. The fluid is absorbed primarily in arachnoid villi in the subarachnoid space. CSF is produced continuously at a rate that replenishes the fluid around three times a day. If there is an obstruction to the flow, or if abnormal flow occurs, then brain tissue can become compressed leading to a number of neurological problems. Our work uses a model which treats the brain tissue as being poroelastic with CSF either flowing through the normal flow paths or having to flow through porous brain tissue. This work was intially carried out in conjunction with Alan Smillie and Zoltan Molnar and that work is available in
Following very helpful refereeing, the work was substantially revised and using very recent estimates for physical parameters of brain tissue, the results were published in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics,
More recent work has been in conjunction with Benedikt Wirth where we have looked at the effect of nonlinear permeability on a spherically symmetric model of the brain and have developed two and three-dimensional models using nonlinear permeability and poroelasticity. This work has now appeared,
Our most recent work considers application of the model to normal pressure hydrocephalus and benign intracranial hypertension (also called psuedotumor cerebri) as well as obstructive hydrocephalus. The following will appear in due course:
This paper is being refereed:
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