Cerebrovascular compliance within the rigid confines of the skull

Authors

Mair Zamir, Western University
M. Erin Moir, Western University
Stephen A. Klassen, Western University
Christopher S. Balestrini, Western University
J. Kevin Shoemaker, Western University

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-17-2018

Journal

Frontiers in Physiology

Volume

9

Issue

JUL

URL with Digital Object Identifier

10.3389/fphys.2018.00940

Abstract

© 2018 Zamir, Moir, Klassen, Balestrini and Shoemaker. Pulsatile blood flow is generally mediated by the compliance of blood vessels whereby they distend locally and momentarily to accommodate the passage of the pressure wave. This freedom of the blood vessels to exercise their compliance may be suppressed within the confines of the rigid skull. The effect of this on the mechanics of pulsatile blood flow within the cerebral circulation is not known, and the situation is compounded by experimental access difficulties. We present an approach which we have developed to overcome these difficulties in a study of the mechanics of pulsatile cerebral blood flow. The main finding is that while the innate compliance of cerebral vessels is indeed suppressed within the confines of the skull, this is compensated somewhat by compliance provided by other "extravascular" elements within the skull. The net result is what we have termed "intracranial compliance," which we argue is more pertinent to the mechanics of pulsatile cerebral blood flow than is intracranial pressure.

Notes

This article is published with open access under the CC-BY Creative Commons attribution license (the current version is CC-BY, version 4.0).

The article was originally published at:

Zamir M, Moir ME, Klassen SA, Balestrini CS and Shoemaker JK (2018) Cerebrovascular Compliance Within the Rigid Confines of the Skull. Front. Physiol. 9:940. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2018.00940

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.