- Posted October 30, 2025
How A Brain Pressure Disorder Causes Vision Loss — And Who Might Be Affected
Doctors think they’ve figured out a way to predict who might lose vision due to a high brain pressure disorder.
Idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH) occurs when there’s unexplained pressure buildup in the fluid that cushions the brain in the skull, researchers explain in the journal Neurology.
If untreated, IIH can lead to blindness, researchers said. It mainly affects women of childbearing age who are obese.
Researchers found that changes in the optic disc – the place inside the eye where the optic nerve connects to the retina – can predict who will develop blind spots in their vision or lose sharpness of vision.
“The number of cases of idiopathic intracranial hypertension has been increasing, and it mainly affects young women, so we need more information about who is more likely to develop vision problems and how that process works,” senior researcher Dr. Dagmar Beier, a clinical professor of neurology with the University of Southern Denmark, said in a news release.
Symptoms associated with IIH include chronic, disabling headaches, double vision, loss of vision, hearing problems and nausea, according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology.
For the new study, researchers analyzed 154 people with IIH treated at two headache centers in Denmark between January 2018 and September 2022. The patients’ average age was 28.
Of those, 147 had papilledema, or swelling of the optic disc due to high pressure in the cerebrospinal fluid surrounding the brain, researchers found.
About 7 in 10 patients (69%) had developed scotomas, or blind spots in their vision that can be temporary or permanent, the study found. In addition, 1 in 4 (26%) had lost some sharpness of vision, also known as reduced visual acuity.
All the patients received medicines to reduce their high brain pressure. After it went away, half still had scotomas and 13% still had reduced visual acuity, although none developed full-fledged blindness.
Researchers identified two specific problems that led to vision loss among these patients.
One group’s papilledema led to damage in the optic nerve fibers of the retina, causing blind spots.
The other group’s papilledema caused problems in the macula – the center of the retina – which resulted in lost sharpness of vision.
Based on this, researchers developed a scoresheet to help doctors predict which patients with IIH will go on to develop vision problems.
“This score needs to be validated by external groups before it can be considered ready for use, but we identified the severity of papilledema and the disorganization of the inner layer of the retina as major predictors for who will have persistent vision problems,” Beier said.
The findings were published Oct. 29.
More information
The American Academy of Ophthalmology has more on idiopathic intracranial hypertension.
SOURCE: American Academy of Neurology, news release, Oct. 29, 2025
