MRI Measurements of ICP in Simulated Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS)

Justin Stevan Lawley¹, Noam Alperin², Sang H. Lee², Paul Gerald Mark Mullins³, Samuel James Oliver¹, Jamie Hugo Macdonald¹

Prolonged exposure to high altitude is often followed by Acute Mountain Sickness, which presents as a number of symptoms including headache, nausea and vomiting. The prevalence of AMS increases with rate of ascent, total altitude gain and irrespective of altitude, a striking individual susceptibility, thought to be the result of a predisposition to intracranial hypertension. Despite the elegance and longevity of this hypothesis, evidence for elevated intracranial pressure (ICP) in concert with AMS is rare due, in part, to the challenging measurement of ICP in healthy individuals. MR estimates of ICP were employed to further elucidate the pathophysiology of AMS.