<
https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/06/26/g-s1-6177/brain-waste-removal-system-amyloid-alzheimer-toxins>
"About 170 billion cells are in the brain, and as they go about their regular
tasks, they produce waste — a lot of it. To stay healthy, the brain needs to
wash away all that debris. But how exactly it does this has remained a mystery.
Now, two teams of scientists have published three papers that offer a detailed
description of the brain's waste-removal system. Their insights could help
researchers better understand, treat and perhaps prevent a broad range of brain
disorders.
The papers, all published in the journal
Nature, suggest that during sleep,
slow electrical waves push the fluid around cells from deep in the brain to its
surface. There, a sophisticated interface allows the waste products in that
fluid to be absorbed into the bloodstream, which takes them to the liver and
kidneys to be removed from the body.
One of the waste products carried away is amyloid, the substance that forms
sticky plaques in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease.
There's growing evidence that in Alzheimer's disease, the brain's waste-removal
system is impaired, says Jeffrey Iliff, who studies neurodegenerative diseases
at the University of Washington but was not a part of the new studies.
The new findings should help researchers understand precisely where the problem
is and perhaps fix it, Iliff says.
"If we restore drainage, can we prevent the development of Alzheimer's
disease?" he asks."
Via Whuffo and Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
