{"id":103328,"date":"2020-03-05T19:03:24","date_gmt":"2020-03-06T03:03:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/03\/discovering-the-brains-nightly-rinse-cycle"},"modified":"2020-03-05T19:03:24","modified_gmt":"2020-03-06T03:03:24","slug":"discovering-the-brains-nightly-rinse-cycle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/03\/discovering-the-brains-nightly-rinse-cycle","title":{"rendered":"Discovering the Brain\u2019s Nightly \u201cRinse Cycle\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/eEszNmVFFm4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Getting plenty of deep, restful sleep is essential for our physical and mental health. Now comes word of yet another way that sleep is good for us: it triggers rhythmic waves of blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) that appear to function much like a washing machine\u2019s rinse cycle, which may help to clear the brain of toxic waste on a regular basis.<\/p>\n<p>The video above uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to take you inside a person\u2019s brain to see this newly discovered rinse cycle in action. First, you see a wave of blood flow (red, yellow) that\u2019s closely tied to an underlying slow-wave of electrical activity (not visible). As the blood recedes, CSF (blue) increases and then drops back again. Then, the cycle\u2014lasting about 20 seconds\u2014starts over again.<\/p>\n<p>The findings, published recently in the journal <em>Science<\/em>, are the first to suggest that the brain\u2019s well-known ebb and flow of blood and electrical activity during sleep may also trigger cleansing waves of blood and CSF. While the experiments were conducted in healthy adults, further study of this phenomenon may help explain why <a href=\"https:\/\/directorsblog.nih.gov\/2019\/02\/05\/sleep-loss-encourages-spread-of-toxic-alzheimers-protein\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"poor sleep or loss of sleep (opens in a new tab)\">poor sleep or loss of sleep<\/a> has previously been associated with the spread of toxic proteins and worsening memory loss in people with Alzheimer\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Getting plenty of deep, restful sleep is essential for our physical and mental health. Now comes word of yet another way that sleep is good for us: it triggers rhythmic waves of blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) that appear to function much like a washing machine\u2019s rinse cycle, which may help to clear the brain [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103328\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}