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Swimming through the ventricles
A flight through the ventricles, the fluid-filled chambers inside the brain, following the cerebrospinal fluid from the lateral ventricles to the fourth.
Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is made at about 500 mL a day, ~80 % of it by the choroid plexus. Only about 150 mL exists at any time (just ~25 mL inside the ventricles), so it is renewed several times a day. It flows: lateral ventricles → interventricular foramina (of Monro) → third ventricle → cerebral aqueduct → fourth ventricle → out through the median (Magendie) and lateral (Luschka) apertures into the space around the brain and spinal cord.
The aqueduct, a channel about 1-2 mm wide, is the narrowest part of the route.
Sources and licence
One real brain: the 7 T MRI and models of the volunteer of Lüsebrink et al., Sci Data 2021 (CC0); aqueduct, foramina of Monro and the three openings of the fourth ventricle traced by us on the same scan. Flow shown schematically (dots).
Video licence: CC BY 4.0. To reuse it, credit “Cerebrarium (Aldo Spolaore)”, link to this page and name the data sources above.
Educational content, not medical advice.
