title: Intracranial pressure changes during mouse development.
abstract: During early stages of postnatal development, pressure from the growing brain as well as cerebrospinal fluid, i.e. intracranial pressure (ICP), load the calvarial bones. It is likely that such loading contributes to the peripheral bone formation at the sutural edges of calvarial bones, especially shortly after birth when the brain is growing rapidly. The aim of this study was to quantify ICP during mouse development. A custom pressure monitoring system was developed and calibrated. It was then used to measure ICP in a total of seventy three wild type mice at postnatal (P) day 3, 10, 20, 31 and 70. Retrospectively, the sample in each age group with the closest ICP to the average value was scanned using micro-computed tomography to estimate cranial growth. ICP increased from 1.33±0.87mmHg at P3 to 1.92±0.78mmHg at P10 and 3.60±1.08mmHg at P20. In older animals, ICP plateaued at about 4mmHg. There were statistically significant differences between the ICP at the P3 vs. P20, and P10 vs. P20. In the samples that were scanned, intracranial volume and skull length followed a similar pattern of increase up to P20 and then plateaued at older ages. These data are consistent with the possibility of ICP being a contributing factor to bone formation at the sutures during early stages of development. The data can be further used for development and validation of computational models of skull growth.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, University College London, Torrington Place, London WC1E 7JE, UK. Electronic address: Mehran_Moazen@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Mehran
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Moazen
authors.affiliation: Institute of Functional Surfaces, School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK.
authors.forename: Ali
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Alazmani
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthodontics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-7446, USA.
authors.forename: Katherine
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Rafferty
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthodontics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-7446, USA.
authors.forename: Zi-Jun
authors.initials: ZJ
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Seattle Children׳s Research Institute, Center for Developmental Biology & Regenerative Medicine and Seattle Children's Craniofacial Center, Seattle, WA 98105, USA.
authors.forename: Jennifer
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gustafson
authors.affiliation: Seattle Children׳s Research Institute, Center for Developmental Biology & Regenerative Medicine and Seattle Children's Craniofacial Center, Seattle, WA 98105, USA.
authors.forename: Michael L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Cunningham
authors.affiliation: Medical and Biological Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Hull, Hull HU6 7RX, UK.
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Fagan
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthodontics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-7446, USA.
authors.forename: Susan W
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: Herring
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001921:Brain / Q000196:embryology*; D001930:Brain Injuries; D003198:Computer Simulation; D005260:Female; D007427:Intracranial Pressure; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic; D011312:Pressure; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012886:Skull; D013997:Time Factors; D055114:X-Ray Microtomography
keywords: Biomechanics; Development; Intracranial pressure; Skull; Suture