The lateral ventricles become dilated very rapidly and sometimes also the third ventricle is enlarged.
Ventricular dilatation causes injury to developing forebrain.
This is a unique and natural model which provides the opportunity to study pathophysiological change in immature and chronically-traumatized brain tissue without any artificial induction. Cannot be completely prevented by postnatal shunt treatment. This suggests that, advances in shunt technology alone, will not be sufficient to normalize neurological outcome for hydrocephalic children and that additional therapies are needed for clinical treatment to be improved and optimized. Our goals are to understand the mechanisms which lead to permanent neurological damage in infantile hydrocephalus. This in turn would lead to the potential for additional therapy besides surgical treatment which would improve the long-term outcome for patients.