Researcher recently observed that the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) penetrates the brain through perivascular spaces around the vessels and travels through the parenchyma thus having the potential of clearing the brain wastes. However, those observations are not well understood. The driving mechanisms, flow velocities and even transport direction are still controversial.

Within the the research project of Kent Mardal (University of Oslo), I will model the CSF transport combining a 1D network description of blood and CSF flow and a 3D poroelastic description of the surrounding tissues. Numerical experiments with this model will help understanding the brain clearance system and its implication in Alzheimer's disease.

A model of blood pulsatility coupled to the cereborspinal fluid dynamics is used to describe a clinical test assessing in vivo the brain biomechanical response. Our approach provide a more precise and robust interpretation of the test, which will be useful both in clinics and research investigations.

As part of the ERC-funded BRAINMICROFLOW project (PI S. Lorthois), the coupling between the vascular system and the cerebrospinal fluid is described at the mesoscale level with a network approach.

A simplified model of the brain biomechanics was used to interpret data from a cohort of 100 patients. The brain biomechanical response was significantly (p<0.05) associated with an index of frailty (cognitive and physical impairment). This is a first evidence that brain biomechanical response could be a new marker of pathological brain aging [Vallet et al. , Journal of Neurology,accepted, to be published].