Influence of Anisotropic White Matter on Electroosmotic Flow Induced by Direct Current

Treatment of cerebral edema remains a major challenge in clinical practice and new innovative therapies are needed. This study presents a novel approach for mitigating cerebral edema by inducing bulk fluid transport utilizing the brain's electroosmotic property using an anatomically detailed finite element head model incorporating anisotropy in the white matter (WM). Three representative anisotropic conductivity algorithms are employed for the WM and compared with isotropic WM. The key results are (1) the electroosmotic flow (EOF) is driven from the edema region to the subarachnoid space under an applied electric field with its magnitude linearly correlated to the electric field and direction following current flow pathways; (2) the extent of EOF distribution variation correlates highly with the degree of the anisotropic ratio of the WM regions; (3) the directions of the induced EOF in the anisotropic models deviate from its isotropically defined pathways and tend to move along the principal fiber direction. The results suggest WM anisotropy should be incorporated in head models for more reliable EOF evaluations for cerebral edema mitigation and demonstrate the promise of the electroosmosis based approach to be developed as a new therapy for edema treatment as evaluated with enhanced head models incorporating WM anisotropy.