Cerebral arteriovenous malformation locations may stop the circulation of the cerebrospinal fluid, causing accumulation of the fluid within the skull and giving rise to a clinical condition called hydrocephalus. A stiff neck can occur as the result of increased pressure within the skull and irritation of the meninges. AVMs are an abnormal connection between the arteries and veins in the human brain. Arteriovenous malformations are most commonly of prenatal origin. In a normal brain oxygen enriched blood from the heart travels in sequence through smaller blood vessels going from arteries, to arterioles and then capillaries. Oxygen is removed in the latter vessel to
Striate arteries They may either rupture, producing an intracerebral hemorrhage that is initially centered in the region they supply, or they become occluded, producing a lacunar infarct in the tissue they supply. The lenticulostriate arteries are "end arteries", meaning that the regions they supply do not have significant collateral blood supply. Occlusion of these vessels therefore leads to stereotyped stroke syndromes. In the case of the lenticulostriate vessels, hemorrhage may remain localized to the putamen and caudate nucleus, may involve neighboring structures such as the internal capsule and other more distant white matter of the hemisphere, or may even rupture into the