Unique brain stiffness and damping ratio patterns associated with morphological phenotypes of normal pressure hydrocephalus

Normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH) is a brain disorder that is often misdiagnosed as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease due to overlapping symptoms. However, unlike such neurodegenerative diseases, NPH can be surgically treated by shunt placement with a success rate of around 80%, depending on phenotype. Therefore, correct diagnosis and categorization of NPH is important. As a step towards that goal, we demonstrate that analyzing the different morphologic phenotypes of NPH using magnetic resonance elastography can help establish unique viscoelastic signatures associated with each phenotype providing distinguishing biomarkers.