ICP: From correlation to causation

Abstract

Intracranial pressure (ICP) is a complex modality in the sense that it largely interconnects various systemic and intra-cranial variables such as cerebral blood flow and volume, cerebrospinal fluid flow and absoption, craniospinal container. In this context, although empirical correlation is an interesting tool for establishing relations between pairs of observed variables, it may be limited to establishing causation relations. For instance, if variables X and Y are mainly influenced by variable Z, their correlation is strong, but does not mean that X has a causation relation with Y or vice versa. In this work, we explore the use of the statistical concept of partial correlation to ICP and other derived measures to apprehend the interplay between correlation and causation.