This study shows that the brain has different functional states when asleep and when awake. In fact, the restorative nature of sleep appears to be the result of the active clearance of the by-products of neural activity that accumulate during wakefulness."
In 2012, Maiken Nedergaard of URMC reported about a system that drains waste from the brain. He named it as "glymphatic system," because it acts like the body's lymphatic system but is managed by brain cells known as glial cells. The glymphatic system clears away toxins or waste products that could be responsible for brain diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease and other neurological disorders.
In the current study, they conducted a series of new experiments on glymphatic system and found that the system is nearly 10 times more active during sleep. They also noted that the sleeping brain removes significantly more amounts of one toxic proteins viz. amyloid-beta which is implicated in Alzheimer's disease.
The brain only has limited energy at its disposal and it appears that it must [choose] between two different functional states - awake and aware or asleep and cleaning up. You can think of it like having a house party. You can either entertain the guests or clean up the house, but you can't really do both at the same time, says Dr. Nedergaard. Understanding precisely how and when the brain activates the glymphatic system and clears waste is a critical first step in efforts to potentially modulate this system and make it work more efficiently. Further findings on glymphatic system are very promising in arriving at an effective solution in the prevention, management and rehabilitation of dirty brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s.
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