Mathematical modelling of neurosurgery, head trauma, and conditions such as hydrocephalus usually treat infant and adult cerebrum as mechanically

equivalent. If infant mechanical properties are required, sometimes a brain-mass scaling relationship is used to find the parameters instead of determining them directly from experimental data. In this talk, we will use age-dependent shear complex modulus data to determine the mechanical properties of infant and adult cerebrum for the fractional Zener viscoelasticmodel.

Using these two sets of parameter values, we will examine the effects of CSF pulsations on the genesis and evolution of hydrocephalus in both the infant and adult cases. Specifically, we will examine the ability of CSF pulsations to damage periventricular tissue, which has been proposed as a possible causative mechanism for hydrocephalus. We will show that the material stresses induced in both the infant and adult brains are much smaller than the damage threshold for white matter, and thus we conclude that the CSF pulsations cannot be the primary cause of tissue damage or ventricular expansion in either infant or adult hydrocephalus.