CEREBROSPINAL-FLUID PULSATION AMPLITUDE AND ITS QUANTITATIVE RELATIONSHIP TO CEREBRAL BLOOD-FLOW PULSATIONS - A PHASE-CONTRAST MR FLOW IMAGING STUDY

Our purpose in this investigation was to explain the heterogeneity in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) flow pulsation amplitudes. To this end, we determined the contributions of the cerebral arterial and jugular v enous flow pulsations to the amplitude of the CSF pulsation. We examin ed 21 healthy subjects by cine phase-contrast MRI at the C2-3 disc lev el to demonstrate the CSF and vascular flows as waveforms. Multiple re gression analysis was performed to calculate the contributions of (a) the arterial and venous waveform amplitudes and (b) the delay between the maximum systolic slopes of the arterial and venous waveforms (AV d elay), in order to predict the amplitude of the CSF waveform. The cont ribution of the arterial waveform amplitude was positive (r = 0.61;p = 0.003) to the CSF waveform amplitude and that of the venous waveform amplitude was negative (r = -0.50; p = 0.006). Both in combination acc ounted for 56% of the variance in predicting the CSF waveform amplitud e (p < 0.0006). The contribution of AV delay was not significant. The results show that the variance in the CSF flow pulsation amplitudes ca n be explained by concurrent evaluation of the CSF and vascular flows. Improvement in the techniques, and controlled experiments, may allow use of CSF flow pulsation amplitudes for clinical applications in the non-invasive assessment of intracranial dynamics by MRI.