Cerebro spinal fluid dynamic in front of cardiac and breathing influence

TL;DR

This study uses advanced MRI techniques to quantify how breathing and cardiac cycles influence cerebrospinal fluid dynamics in the brain and spinal canal.

Contribution

It provides the first quantitative evaluation of CSF stroke volume changes during breathing and cardiac cycles using EPI-PC MRI.

Findings

CSF stroke volume varies with breathing and cardiac cycles

EPI-PC MRI effectively captures CSF velocity changes

Quantitative data on CSF dynamics during respiration and heartbeat

Abstract

It is still debated how breathing interacts with the CSF. New Phase contrast MRI sequence based on Echo Planar imaging (EPI-PC) can now produce continuously during minutes a velocity map, more or less every 100 ms. We did not found in the literature quantitative evaluation of the CSF stroke volume change during breathing. The aim of this work is to quantify CSF dynamics change in the aqueduct and in the spinal canal during the breathing and cardiac period using EPI-PC.