We have been repeatedly reminded of the importance of sleep, not just sleep per se but the appropriate hours of sleep required for our age. Likewise, health professionals have told us not only about the future effects of our lack of sleep and how it can potentially damage the brain.
Now, there is yet another fascinating reason why we need to get our complete rest. Our brains are using our sleeping period as a way to detox themselves.
Sleep is like resetting our devices when we feel like they’re too crowded or heating up, according to researchers from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis studied the brainwave activity during sleep.
According to their research published in Nature, neurons need energy to allow us to accomplish complicated tasks, including memorizing things or solving even the simplest problems. Every time we use our brain for such activities (and we use our brain not only for mental activities but also for physical activities), fragments are left behind after the neurons have used up the energy.
Sleeping apparently allows neurons to use rhythmic waves to assist the cerebrospinal fluid in getting through the brain tissue. This, in turn, carries out metabolic waste—the fragments that remain throughout the period we are awake. This process needs to happen so that we don’t develop potential neurodegenerative diseases in the future.
The neurons and their role in overall brain function
Our brains have developed over time to acquire billions of neurons appearing in the brain’s functional tissue (parenchyma). This, in turn, is protected by the blood-brain barrier.
As previously stated, neurons create metabolic waste as they fulfill their role in helping the brain function; these wastes are the protein fragments that past studies have seen to contribute to neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s.
Just like how we need to visit the dentist now and then to have our teeth cleaned because brushing simply isn’t enough, the brain needs to ‘clean’ up. This ‘throwing out the trash’ process is known as the glymphatic system.
It works by carrying cerebrospinal fluid, which stirs debris away from the parenchyma and into channels near the blood vessels.
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Further experiments on the glymphatic system
The team also wanted to find out what urges the glymphatic system to take out the trash, so they did so through an experiment with mice.
They inserted probes through the rodents’ brains, setting electrodes in the spaces between neurons. Then, they gave the mice ketamine to make them sleep. Immediately, the neurons sent out strong charged currents as soon as the mice went to sleep, and despite the slow pace caused by the injection of anesthesia, the cerebrospinal fluid continued to move, passing through the dura mater, the outer layer of tissue between the brain and the skull, taking the wastes along with it.
Additionally, the scientists genetically engineered the brains of some of the mice to eliminate most neuronal activity while they were resting (carefully so as not to reach the point of brain death.) They did this so that they could ensure that neurons were the driving force for the glymphatic system to act.
The lengthy and slow brain waves were difficult to distinguish with the mice tampered with. As an effect, fluid did not carry the metabolic wastes out of the brain. Researchers concluded that neurons had to be active so the brain could begin self-cleaning.
On the other hand, those mice left alone were hypothesized to have slightly faster waves aimed at the waste fragments and their removal. With this, scientists could observe that neurons are at the core of how brains eliminate the waste accumulated throughout the day, mainly because the movement of the cerebrospinal fluid relies so much on neural activity.
Only through this natural cycle of the brain, when its vessel goes to sleep, does it naturally reset itself and removes the excess fragments, but it will not do so well once different methodologies or experiments have been inserted in the process.
From all the careful experiments, observations, and research studies of the scientists, they concluded that neurons set the glymphatic system into motion. In this sense, scientists are now turning their future studies on that complex process.
Further studies of this process may also lead to a deeper understanding of various neurodegenerative diseases and other harmful and helpful effects on the brain.
So, the next time you go to a dentist to have your teeth cleaned, or even if you are taking your usual routine for ensuring a clean body, keep in mind that the brain also needs its clean-up process, and to do that doesn’t ask us to visit a health professional. All it takes is a complete hour of sleep appropriate for our age.