» Spontaneous venous pulsations (Video) : RootAtlas

Spontaneous venous pulsations (Video)

Last updated September 13, 2007

length: 38 seconds

This video shows what spontaneous venous pulsations look like in the retina. This eye is suffering from ocular ischemic syndrome which has dilated the retinal veins and make them even easier to see than usual.

Most people believe that these pulsations are caused because of a differential between eye and CSF pressure. The CSF cavity (transmitted forward along the optic nerves) is separated from the vitreous cavity by only the lamina cribosa at the optic nerve head. When pressure is elevated too high around the brain, the pulsations stop because the pressure gradient is too high. The presence of pulsations is a reasonably good indicator that the CSF pressure is ok. Unfortunately, the lack of pulsations doesn’t tell you much as this can be entirely normal.

Pulsations are only rarely examined in ophthalmology, and this findings is more often sought after by neurology who deal more with ICP issues.

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Comments and Feedback
3 Comments »

Hi,
Thanks for the interesting video. I can see the veins dilated, which is a classical sign of OIS. The arteries look much attenuated and these pulsations seem to originate rather from the retinal artery, which is another typical sign of severe ocular blood flow compromise, and that is perhaps transmitted to the venous wall.
Mostafa

Comment by Mostafa Elgohary — January 29, 2008 @ 4:29 am

thx you very much!
Im from Vietnam, where don’t have many video for study.
This Web Help me very much. THx agan .

Comment by mr.bui — October 3, 2008 @ 12:11 am

Great video, thank you so much. Being in my last year of neurology, I have always had difficulty seeing this, but now I have a better idea of what to look for.

Michael Abraham

Comment by Michael — November 5, 2008 @ 1:07 pm

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