Intracranial pressure (ICP) refers to the pressure of the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in the cranial space, and it is an important indicator for various brain diseases such as traumatic brain injury, brain hemorrhage, tumors, and hydrocephalus. Physicians monitor a patient’s ICP and consider the mean ICP value when making medical decisions about the patient. However, it is not the simple mean ICP value but the waveform of the ICP pulse that reflects the physical conditions of CSF space in the patient. The goals of my SuperUROP project are to develop models of the CSF space to understand the dynamics and physiological mechanisms of ICP pulsation, and to test whether these models can be used to estimate physical parameters of the CSF space from clinical waveform data

In 6.021J, I enjoyed learning about Hutchkin-Huxley model which uses circuit elements to describe the initiation and the propagation of action potentials in neurons. I hope to learn more about computational modeling of human physiological systems through SuperUROP.