An In-Vitro Experimental Investigation of Oscillatory Flow in the Cerebral Aqueduct

The cerebrospinal fluid filling the ventricles of the brain moves with a cyclic velocity driven by the transmantle pressure, or instantaneous pressure difference between the lateral ventricles and the cerebral subarachnoid space. The periodic flow was generated with a programmable piston pump (SuperPump AR, ViVitro Labs, Victoria, Canada) connected through semi-rigid tubing to a ball valve located near the bottom of one of the reservoirs. MRI-informed in-vitro experiments have been used to evaluate the pressure difference between the third to fourth ventricles in the brain Δp, yielding results in good agreement with those of a previously derived mathematical model.