Our Brains also Have Recycle Bins

Scientists have found that our brains have a system to clean itself.

To me it is called Sleep,Time and Death.

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Research from the University of Rochester Medical Center, though, has now shown that—in mice, at least—the brain has its own flushing mechanism, a bit like a toilet. It quite literally pumps fluid along the outside of blood vessels to wash crap away.

To work that out, the team of researchers monitored fluid flow in the brain using radioactive tracers. They observed that mouse brains have extracellular space through which cerebrospinal fluid flows to wash waste away. The team also showed that mice brains without such space cleared waste—including amyloid proteins which are linked to Alzheimer’s—70 percent more slowly than normal mice. The results are published in Science.

While the finding in itself is interesting, perhaps more exciting is what the future holds for this kind of research. In theory, it should be possible to amp up the amount of flushing the brain does—which could in turn help scientists purge the junk that contributes to diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. [Science via Wired]

http://gizmodo.com/5935260/how-your-brain-cleans-itself

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