Health > Healthful Living

284 - How The Brain Cleans Cellular Debris While We Sleep

(1/1)

Curt:
284 - How The Brain Cleans Cellular Debris While We Sleep

The brain makes a lot of waste. Now scientists think they know where it goes

https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/06/26/g-s1-6177/brain-waste-removal-system-amyloid-alzheimer-toxins

NPR.org June 26, 20245:00 AM ET Jon Hamilton

About 170 billion cells are in the brain, and as they go about their regular tasks, they produce waste — a lot of it. Including amyloid, the substance that forms sticky plaques in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease.... Now, two teams of scientists have published three papers that offer a detailed description of the brain's waste-removal system. Published in the Journal Nature. The glymphatic system. ....

So scientists have spent decades trying to answer a fundamental question, Kipnis says: "How does a waste molecule from the middle of the brain make it all the way out to the borders of the brain" and ultimately out of the body?

Waves that washKipnis and his team began looking at what the brain was doing as it slept. As part of that effort, they measured the power of a slow electrical wave that appears during deep sleep in animals.
 And they realized something: "By measuring the wave, we are also measuring the flow of interstitial fluid," the liquid found in the spaces around cells, Kipnis says.

 It turned out that the waves were acting as a signal, synchronizing the activity of neurons and transforming them into tiny pumps that push fluid toward the brain's surface, the team reported in February in the journal Nature.In a paper published a few weeks earlier, Kipnis had shown how waste, including amyloid, appeared to be crossing the protective membrane that usually isolates the brain.

 Kipnis and his team focused on a vein that passes through this membrane.
 "Around the vein, you have a sleeve, which is never fully sealed," he says. "That's where the [cerebrospinal fluid] is coming out" and transferring waste to the body's lymphatic system.Iliff says many of the new findings in mice still need to be confirmed in people.

 "The anatomical differences between a rodent and a human," he says, "they're pretty substantial."

rahab:
 :)

rahab:
Most important to receive at least one hour of deep sleep to be sure brain is detoxed

Navigation

[0] Message Index