Hydrocephalus Program

Is the motion of cerebrospinal fluid responsible for hydrocephalus?

Traditionally, hydrocephalus was thought to be caused by an imbalance of production and absorption of cerebrospinal fluid. Studying the problem, Boston Children's neurosurgeon Joseph Madsen, MD, and colleagues realized that the key to hydrocephalus may not be the amount of fluid in the brain, but rather the fluid's pulsing motion.

These natural pulses, linked to the heartbeat, may help ensure adequate blood flow in the brain. However, the smallest blood vessels need to be buffered from the pulses to protect them from mechanical stress.

Madsen and colleagues have discovered a system that does this in the normal brain, and speculate that malfunction of this system contributes to hydrocephalus. "One reason people with hydrocephalus get headaches may be that their shunts don't solve the problem of buffering the pulsations," Madsen says.

Making strides in developing drug therapies for hydrocephalus

New research is suggesting several new ways to look at hydrocephalus—and even the possibility of treating the condition with drug therapies. Michael Klagsbrun, PhD, of Boston Children's Vascular Biology Program, and Leonard Zon, MD, PhD, director of Boston Children's Stem Cell Research Program, have created animal models of hydrocephalus—in mice and zebrafish, respectively—that could be used to test new theories and, potentially, new drug treatments.

Creating noninvasive ways to measure intracranial pressure

Thanks to a grant from the Boston-based nonprofit Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT), Children's neurosurgeon Joseph Madsen, MD, is creating a system to noninvasively measure pressure inside the skulls of patients with hydrocephalus, head injuries, subarachnoid hemorrhage and other related conditions. His goal is to create a portable device that can be used by emergency technicians, as well as by medics in battlefield situations.