Saikat Mukherjee earns NSF funding for project modeling interstitial flow physics in porous brain cortex

Pictured above: Members of the Fluidtrans Research Group from left are Saikat Mukherjee and PhD students Bibhas Kumar, Drik Sarkar and Davoud Asadollahi.

Award Winner: Saikat Mukherjee

Award Title: Modeling interstitial flow physics in the porous brain cortex

Award Category: Project Funding Award

Award Description: The project aims to develop a swelling-porous media model to fundamentally understand how traveling waves in the brain during acute and physiological conditions drive interstitial fluid flow. The research proposes a rigorous system of volume-averaged conservation equations to model interstitial fluid dynamics in the porous brain cortex. The project will have the following objectives: 1. Model interstitial fluid dynamics by using a volume-averaging technique and deriving a modified Darcy’s law for flows through a porous media with spatiotemporally varying permeability profiles. 2. Quantifying interstitial fluid flow driven by traveling waves by implementing physiological reaction-diffusion equations, traveling wave models, and osmosis-induced porosity fluctuations. The porosity fluctuations will be coupled with the interstitial fluidflow model. 3. Quantifying the influence of wave properties on interstitial fluid flow by systematically varying the wave properties. Parameter regimes will be identified where interstitial fluid flow is optimized in healthy and diseased brains. The research will constitute the first model of traveling wave-induced interstitial fluid dynamics in the brain cortex and will side-step the experimental bottleneck of visualizing interstitial flow in the cortex.

Funding Source: NSF

Award Amount: $319,574