HMN 2025: How Fluid dynamics model might assist hydrocephalus sufferers

Millions of individuals worldwide endure from hydrocephalus, or a buildup of extra cerebrospinal fluid within the mind, and which just lately obtained larger consideration when Billy Joel introduced his prognosis. Treatment normally entails surgical placement of shunts to divert fluid away, however this process typically results in issues, infections, and a number of re-treatments.

Bioengineers at Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have developed a brand new computational model that mixes mind anatomy, fluid circulate, and biomolecular transport dynamics to simulate shunt efficiency with pinpoint accuracy. Their aim: assist with the creation of customized shunts which are tailor-made to particular sufferers’ anatomy and wishes.

The work was printed in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

It was led by SEAS postdoctoral fellow Haritosh Patel, who works within the labs of Joanna Aizenberg, the Amy Smith Berylson Professor of Materials Science at SEAS and Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology; and Venkatesh Murthy, the Raymond Leo Erikson Life Sciences Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology and Paul J. Finnegan Family Director of the Center for Brain Science.

Repeat surgical procedures as a consequence of an infection or obstruction

Tens of hundreds of shunt procedures are carried out yearly within the U.S.—a lot of that are repeat surgical procedures as a result of inserted gadgets changing into blocked or obstructed, or the affected person struggling an an infection.

“Some aged sufferers instructed me they’d had over 10 surgical procedures—one each two to 3 years,” Patel stated.

“We actually needed to grasp why this was occurring, and we realized that many of those obstructions and infections have been tied to shunt designs that did not absolutely take into account fluid dynamics as a elementary a part of their geometry.

“We observed that the tubing geometry utilized in shunts intently resembles the type of piping we depend on in family plumbing. While that simplicity has its benefits, we noticed a chance to discover extra artistic, biomimetic options that higher swimsuit the complexity of the mind’s atmosphere.”

Pursuing the issue from each a cloth and design perspective, the crew shortly realized there was no universally accepted fluid circulate model for the mind ventricle area to information them.

“Okay, nicely, we won’t check our gadgets in a model, so why do not we first make a greater model?” Patel stated.

Computational instrument simulates fluid circulate within the mind

The result’s their computational instrument, referred to as BrainStream, which mixes detailed anatomical and physiological options of the mind to simulate the circulate of cerebrospinal fluid circulate within the presence of shunt implants.

The model incorporates patient-specific medical imaging knowledge together with pulse-induced circulate to imitate a affected person’s cerebrospinal fluid dynamics, all to supply perception into optimum shunt design, placement, and even selection of supplies.

“We imagine that our model, mixed with novel geometries and supplies enhancements akin to anti-biofouling coatings developed in my lab, might result in smoother integration of optimized, patient-specific medical gadgets into sufferers’ brains, with much less probability of issues, and a greater high quality of life,” Aizenberg stated.

The Harvard crew is at present conducting research that use the model to check totally different designs of shunts and calculate their efficacy.