The formation of the cerebrospinal fluid: a case study of the cerebrospinal fluid system

Abstract

It was generally accepted that the rate of formation of cerebrospinal °uid (CSF) is independent of intraventricular pressure [26], until A. Sahar and a host of other scientists challenged this belief. A. Sahar substantiated his belief that the rate of (CSF) formation actually depends on intraventricular pressure, see A. Sahar, 1971 [26]. In this work we show that CSF formation depends on some other factors, including the intraventricular pressure. For the purpose of this study, we used the capillary blood °ow model proposed by K.Boryczko et. al., [5] in which blood °ow in the microvessels was modeled as a two-phase °ow; the solid and the liquid volume phase. CSF is formed from the blood plasma [23] which we assume to be in the liquid volume phase. CSF is a Newtonian °uid [2, 23]. The principles and methods of e®ective area" developed by N. Sauer and R. Maritz [21] for studying the penetration of °uid into permeable walls was used to investigate the ¯ltrate momentum °ux from the intracranial capillary wall through the pia mater and epithelial layer of the choroid plexus into the subarachnoid space. We coupled the dynamic boundary equation with the Navier-Stoke's constitutive equation for incompressible °uid, representing the °uid °ow in the liquid volume phase in the capillary to arrive at our model.