Fresh Insights Into Sleep, Brain Cleansing, and Memory

Newswise — Why does the brain need sleep to function properly? Emerging research suggests that fluid volume swells during sleep, helping flush waste products such as amyloid-β that can precipitate disease. A new study sheds more light on this process, finding that fluctuations in the extracellular ion composition drive those crucial fluid volume changes. In mice, manipulating the ion mix alone could wake up sleeping animals or cause active ones to nod off. Other recent papers tied insufficient flow of brain fluid more closely to sleep and disease. Alzforum explores this research in part 1 of this series.

Besides cleansing the brain, sleep is known to be crucial in consolidating memories from the day before, but how it does this is unclear. New research reports an essential role for a protein synthesis pathway and for specific electrical rhythms during rapid eye movement sleep, as Alzforum describes in part 2 of this series.

About UsFounded in 1996, Alzforum is a news and information resource website dedicated to helping researchers accelerate discovery and advance development of diagnostics and treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders.

Our site expands the traditional mode of scientific communication by reporting the latest scientific findings and industry news with insightful analysis that puts breaking news into context. We advance research by developing open-access databases of curated, highly specific scientific content to visualize and facilitate the exploration of complex data. Alzforum is a platform to disseminate the evolving knowledge around basic, translational, and clinical research in the field of AD.

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