Getting enough sleep ensures a clean brain and a lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease, researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center told .
The , conducted on mice, reveals that the system in charge of washing toxicities from the brain ramps up during sleep. In mice, the brain also contracts, making room for a fluid to flush out the spaces between neurons and drain plaque-like proteins into the bloodstream.
“It’s probably not possible for the brain to both clean itself and at the same time [be] aware of the surroundings and talk and move and so on,” says Maiken Nedergaard, professor of neurosurgery at the University of Rochester and author of the study published in .
This explains why we can have trouble thinking after a sleepless night; neural maintenance appears most effective while we snooze.
The results also offer scientists a place to start in the development of controlled sleep as treatment for those at risk of Alzheimer’s. Nedergaard notes: “Isn’t it interesting that Alzheimer’s and all other diseases associated with dementia鈥攖hey are linked to sleep disorders?”