Intracranial hypertension: condition monitoring, simulation and time domain analysis

This paper discusses developments in the measurement and simulation of intracranial pressure in humans and recent research carried out by the authors on techniques for the noninvasive measurement of intracranial pressure. A simulation of the dynamics of the human brain has been carried out based on a six compartment resistive, compliant model and serves as an indicator of time domain phase changes between intracranial blood pressure and blood velocity. This paper concentrates on the time domain experiments and analysis that were used in validating the simulation and developing a noninvasive approach to the measurement of intracranial pressure. The time domain analysis uses the cross-correlation of the blood flow velocity of the middle cerebral artery with blood pressure measurements and their varying phase shift with trauma characteristics to make predictions of intracranial pressure trends that lead to pathologically dangerous conditions. The development of software and associated graphical displays that could inform the nursing staff of trends in intracranial pressure is outlined