Intracranial pressure

Clinical areas of focus

A major point of focus for the group is investigations into fundamental brain physiology in regard to pressure regulation in different body postures. We see this as an important and necessary step on the way to optimizing diagnosis and treatment in various patient categories requiring shunts and other procedures designed to alleviate CSF dynamic disturbances.

The work centers on posture related changes in intracranial pressure in both healthy individuals and patients with abnormal ICP, such as idiopathic intracranial hypertension, normal pressure hydrocephalus, and other forms of hydrocephalus.

Technical areas of focus

Our research into biotechnical aspects of intracranial pressure monitoring is made possible by important collaborations with engineers with special expertise in biotechnical hardware and advanced signal processing. Telemetric ICP monitoring is a current major clinical-technical focus.

Our work on signal processing to automate parts of the ICP monitoring session analysis was significantly boosted through the Tandem Novo Grant with a PhD project in signal analysis engineering, which was completed in 2021. This project involved an extensive collaboration with the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) through common projects with Professor Jens Wilhjelm from the Department of Electrical and Biomedical Engineering. Isabel Martinez Tejada, MSc, defended her PhD in October 2021, and was guided through her work by Professor Jens Wilhjelm, Professor Marianne Juhler, and post.doc. Morten Andresen.

Based on this project we continue our work to characterize the physiological ICP signal using novel computerized techniques, allowing for increased reliability in the diagnosis of CSF-related disorders, as well as take a fresh look at the categorization of macro-patterns of intracranial pressure.