Organised streaming of cerebrospinal fluid in the human third ventricle

Increasing aqueduct peak Reynolds number in transient CFD simulations of the human third ventricle shifts CSF motion from reversible oscillations to preferential pathways, yielding a streaming ratio SR that saturates with diminishing returns.

• Why it matters: Residual CSF streaming may depend on how cardiac and respiratory waves organize flow in the ventricles, but the hydrodynamic conditions that create preferential pathways are unclear.
• What they did: The study ran transient CFD in the third ventricle while varying wave frequency, stroke volume, and waveform asymmetry, then quantified the permanent streaming flux across the aqueduct relative to mean oscillatory flow.
• The result: The streaming ratio SR follows a rational saturation relation, SR [~] ReAq,peak/(C + ReAq,peak), implying that higher aqueduct peak Reynolds number bounds the relative contribution of residual inter-ventricular streaming.

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