A new look at cerebrospinal fluid movement

Abstract

Brinker et al. extensively reviewed recent findings about CSF circulation in a recent article: " A new look at cerebrospinal circulation" , but did not analyze some important available data in sufficient detail. For example, our findings as well as some clinical data and experimental results obtained from different animal species, do not support unidirectional CSF circulation but strongly suggest that there are cardiac cycle-dependent systolic-diastolic to-and-fro cranio-spinal CSF movements. These are based on: a) physiological oscillations of arterial and venous blood during cranio-spinal blood circulation; b) respiratory activity, and c) body activity and posture. That kind of complex CSF movement could explain the observed distribution of many different substances in all directions along the CSF system and within central nervous system tissue. It seems that efflux transport systems at capillary endothelium may be more important for brain homeostasis than the removal of metabolites by CSF flow. Thus, when discussing the CSF dynamics we suggest that a more appropriate term would be CSF movement rather than CSF circulation.