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Background

The craniospinal space corresponds to the volume within the three meninges, which mainly includes brain tissue, blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Given the spatial constraints imposed by the skull and vertebrae, a volume increase of any of the aforementioned components without equivalent reduction of the volume of the others translates into a higher pressure within the craniospinal space. The body’s ability to accommodate a rise in intracranial contents without substantial increase in intracranial pressure (i.e., the pressure within CSF structures) is of high pathophysiological relevance and is hereafter referred to as craniospinal compliance (CC). In clinical practice, CC is measured invasively with ventricular or lumbar infusion testing. A non-invasive alternative, which would limit discomfort and side effects for the patient, is lacking.

Project Goal

Based on the work of Russegger and Ennemoser [1], a device was developed by Dr. Spiegelberg (Interface Group) with the goal to derive a non-invasive surrogate for CC. The device forms a resonating circuit with the head and measures a signal that is modulated by cardiac and respiration activity. The device obtained the CE-mark and a startup (Cephalotec, Horgen, Switzerland) has been founded around it.

The goal of the present project is to measure the aforementioned signal in a cohort of healthy elderly volunteers and to analyze the collected data, which will serve as a basis for comparison with data concomitantly acquired in patients suffering from intracranial volume-occupying diseases.

You will

• Perform physiological testing in a cohort of healthy elderly volunteers
• Analyze the collected signals to obtain the metrics of interest
• Potentially contribute to the device further development

You bring

• German or Swiss German proficiency
• Basic knowledge of MATLAB

References

[1] L. Russegger and O. Ennemoser, “[Atraumatic measurement of intracranial pressure],” Wien. Klin. Wochenschr., vol. 102, no. 18, pp. 543–547, 1990