Major Research Award
A new understanding of increased pressure within the skull in brain diseases
Dr Neil Spratt
University of Newcastle
Co-Investigators : Dr Damian McLeod, Ms Lucy Murtha
SPRATT, Neil Major Gift Neil Spratt (left) with Gerald Edmunds, Secretary General of Brain Foundation

The skull encases and protects the brain, but after injury, increasing pressure within the skull can reduce blood flow and worsen injury. As occurs elsewhere in the body, when the brain is injured (from e.g. trauma, stroke or bleeding around the brain) swelling occurs.

Because the skull is basically a ‘closed box’ this swelling can cause a pressure rise. This has been recognised as a problem for more than a century. However, we have made recent experimental discoveries that show that pressure rises even after small stroke without noticeable brain swelling. We were suspicious that this pressure rise may be related to increases in the volume fluid around the brain – the cerebrospinal fluid. We found that there is a substance within this fluid that can trigger the pressure rise.

Excitingly, our experimental studies also show that the pressure rise can be completely prevented by a short duration of body cooling. Dangerous pressure rises are also an important feature of multiple other brain diseases, and existing treatments are limited. As in stroke, causes other than brain swelling have not generally been considered.

In this project we will determine the best way to apply cooling, as a precursor to clinical trials; we will explore the mechanisms causing the rise, in order to develop additional therapies; and we will determine whether this newly identified mechanism contributes to pressure rise in other brain disorders.

I would like to thank the Brain Foundation for the opportunity to pursue this exciting research.