What are the causes of brain bleeds (intracranial hemorrhage)?
What are the causes of brain bleeds (intracranial hemorrhage)?
Bleeding in the brain has a number of causes, including:
- Head trauma, caused by a fall, car accident, sports accident or other type of blow to the head.
- High blood pressure (hypertension), which can damage the blood vessel walls and cause the blood vessel to leak or burst.
- Buildup of fatty deposits in the arteries (atherosclerosis).
- Blood clot that formed in the brain or traveled to the brain from another part of the body, which damaged the artery and caused it to leak.
- Ruptured cerebral aneurysm (a weak spot in a blood vessel wall that balloons out and bursts).
- Buildup of amyloid protein within the artery walls of the brain (cerebral amyloid angiopathy).
- A leak from abnormally formed connections between arteries and veins (arteriovenous malformation).
- Bleeding disorders or treatment with anticoagulant therapy (blood thinners).
- Brain tumor that presses on brain tissue causing bleeding.
- Smoking, heavy alcohol use, or use of illegal drugs such as cocaine.
- Conditions related to pregnancy or childbirth, including eclampsia, postpartum vasculopathy, or neonatal intraventricular hemorrhage.
- Conditions related to abnormal collagen formation in the blood vessel walls that can cause to walls to be weak, resulting in a rupture of the vessel wall.