Question

What is the role of intracranial pressure (ICP) in the pathophysiology of Hydrocephalus?

Answer 1

Answer: Hydrocephalus is caused as the irregularities created between how much CSF ( cerebrospinal fluid) is produced and how much it absorbs in the bloodstream.So here ICP that stands for intracranial pressure rises according to the amount of CSF will be absorbed. It leads to compensation through transventricular absorption of CSF and also along nerve root sleeves.

It causes the temporal and frontal dilates and results in elevation of corpus callosum.

Vascular changes cause the distortion cerebral vessels, stretching the vascular wall and increase the cerebrovascular resistance (CVR), compression and collapse leads to disorder of regulation of cerebral circulation.

Finally cerebral blood flow decreases causes cerebral ischemia.

Note- Increased CVR (cerebrovascular resistance) is detected by transcranial Doppler sonography.