#medicine
Sleep as Therapy.
“The restorative power of sleep may originate outside of our neurons, in the interstitial space between cells.
During sleep, this space expands by 60 percent, perhaps to more effectively clear away toxins, researchers report in Science magazine.
“Sleep changes the cellular structure of the brain. It appears to be a completely different state,” says Maiken Nedergaard, the co-director of the Center for Translational Neuromedicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York.
Nedergaard and her colleagues showed that the mouse glymphatic system – which exchanges cleansing cerebrospinal fluid for protein-laden interstitial fluid in the brain – enlarges during sleep or anesthesia, and shrinks during awake periods.
As an example of sleep’s cleaning power, the group demonstrated that β-amyloid in the interstitial space disappeared faster while animals were sleeping.
The finding “fits with a long-standing view that sleep is for recovery – that something is paid back or cleaned out,” says Sleep researcher David Dinges of the University of Pennsylvania.
“It’s not surprising, our whole physiology is changing during sleep,” says Raphaelle Winsky-Sommerer, a lecturer in Sleep at Surrey University.
“The novelty is the role of the interstitial space, but I think it’s an added piece of the puzzle, not the whole mechanism.”
The brain has limited resources, and can’t devote energy to both the functions of awake states and house cleaning.
“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.”
– Joy Kallivayalil.
