This simulator demonstrates how rising intracranial pressure erodes cerebral perfusion pressure and triggers the cascading Cushing reflex, letting you watch systemic blood pressure surge, heart rate fall, and breathing grow irregular as the brain fights to preserve its own blood supply.
Gradually increase intracranial pressure using the control and observe how mean arterial pressure, heart rate, and the breathing pattern respond in real time. Watch for the point at which cerebral perfusion pressure drops low enough to trigger the sympathetic surge, then track how the resulting hypertension provokes reflex bradycardia and how continued pressure elevation destabilizes the breathing rhythm.
A slider controls intracranial pressure, with live readouts for mean arterial pressure, cerebral perfusion pressure, heart rate, and a breathing waveform that shifts from regular to irregular as the simulated Cushing reflex activates.
Harvey Cushing first described this reflex in 1901 after observing it in laboratory animals subjected to artificially raised intracranial pressure, and it remains one of the few reflexes named directly for the person who characterized it rather than for its mechanism.
This simulator demonstrates how rising intracranial pressure erodes cerebral perfusion pressure and triggers the cascading Cushing reflex, letting you watch systemic blood pressure surge, heart rate fall, and breathing grow irregular as the brain fights to preserve its own blood supply.
This simulator demonstrates how rising intracranial pressure erodes cerebral perfusion pressure and triggers the cascading Cushing reflex, letting you watch systemic blood pressure surge, heart rate fall, and breathing grow irregular as the brain fights to preserve its own blood supply.
Gradually increase intracranial pressure using the control and observe how mean arterial pressure, heart rate, and the breathing pattern respond in real time. Watch for the point at which cerebral perfusion pressure drops low enough to trigger the sympathetic surge, then track how the resulting hypertension provokes reflex bradycardia and how continued pressure elevation destabilizes the breathing rhythm.
Harvey Cushing first described this reflex in 1901 after observing it in laboratory animals subjected to artificially raised intracranial pressure, and it remains one of the few reflexes named directly for the person who characterized it rather than for its mechanism.