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Ependymal Cells — 5 Comments

  1. Gil Tisue on said:

    I am a (basically non-medical) researcher in the area of non-invasive ICP measurement. My somewhat unique situation is that I am both a shunted patient and an engineer with 60+ years experience in the design of precision electro-mechanical and optical systems. I have achieved significant success in ICP measurement for my own shunted situation. My question concerns the operation of the ependymal cell regarding ICP. The information I find on line that the cells also absorb ICF as well as generate it tells me that it is THE controller of ICP. A fact that would seem obvious since the other components in the cranial cavity cannot do so but I have never seen that stated directly or even implied. My shunt is for a non-communicating cyst and I am also interested in your opinion as to whether ICF moves into the cyst through osmosis or is generated by distributed ependymal cells or both. Any comment would be useful and greatly appreciated.

    • Margaret Reece, PhD on said:

      There is no easy answer to your questions. ICF production in the brain is a balance between secretion and drainage that can be disrupted by disease, trauma, tumor and stroke. There is a review article published just this past April that you may find helpful. The authors say “This review aims to examine existing literature—acknowledging our current understanding of CSF physiology and controversies in the field, while exploring how altered secretion and drainage may link to ICP in pathology. This will allow us to identify gaps in knowledge and to identify new targets for research within the field of CNS injury.” The link their open access article is https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6456952/

  2. Gil Tisue on said:

    Thanks for the response. The article was very interesting although much of it was beyond my abilities. The fact that the nature of the equilibrium between generation and absorption of ICF is still a mystery was surprising. It is of interest for me in that with a non-communicating cyst about 15% of the cranial cavity, ICP effects after body position changes get complicated. It would seem that essentially there are two cavities, one with several choroud plexis and distributed epitheliel cells and the other with only the cells. When the drastic pressure drop in ICP going from supine to upright occurs, recovery has two time constants. My instrument indicates that recovery is quite long.
    As a non-medical scientist it seems that the feedback loop determining ICP could be closed by either the generation process in the cells or by the absorption one or both. In my case osmosis into the cyst could be involved as well.

  3. AMBER AMIR on said:

    is that Ependymal cells control chemical environment of CNS?

    • Margaret Reece, PhD on said:

      The ependymal cells play a role in the overall maintenance of the chemical environment of the brain. The endothelial cells of the blood capillaries and the astrocytes are also active participants. And, in humans it is thought that the ependymal cells form a barrier to entrance of infection.

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