, A rinsing of the brain. ‘New research shows you could not sleep, as the department Alzheimer’s disease

Each 3-lb of us trucks to one. Universe who orchestrated everything we do: our consciousness moving action, thought and the steering sensor, but also the management of natural body functions like breathing for us, keeps our hearts beating and digest our food. It makes sense that such a fast-paced world of business would have to rest. This is what decades doctors thought sleep was everything. Slumber was, if everything went the complicated connections and involved in the business of chemical signals in the brain critical to duty cop, take time to recharge. We are all familiar pull an entire night or during a red-eye flight, stay awake, not only can change our state of mind with this role of restful sleep for the brain, but also affect our ability to think clearly, to a some point in time it includes practically alone downwards. If we do not get enough sleep, not just us. But exactly what happens during sleep the brain is a biological black box. Positioning of total neurons do not work anymore, sign the cellular equivalent of a Do Not Disturb? And what if a sleeping brain wants to make not just a well-deserved break, but also the downtime with the sense of the world, trapped by memories and emotions stowage? And like I said, right? In the last five years, neuroscientists have begun a hidden world of chemical reactions to be exposed, the fluids flowing in and out of the brain, and the thesis of neurons that is the sleeping brain as active as the wax to reveal. Without good quality sleep, these critical activities do not take place, and but for the advantage to certain diseases can also unseeded, as a result, not only feel tired and irritable, processes. One of the reasons why we sleep, as it seems now, a number of diseases, including cognitive diseases could be to keep, such as Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of checking in dementia. When Adam Spira, a professor in the department of mental health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, which brings “, you really want to not see sleep as a luxury or waste of time. People joke that they’ll sleep when I’m dead, but it could end soon die if they do not sleep. “the search for a good night? Search by signing up for driving time to scientific mysteries of sleep. Blame scholar Benjamin Franklin insisted, “It will be sleeping enough in the grave”; Since then, an industry culture was justified embedding in the human psyche the idea that the activity, even in the night, he loved it more than the daily rest. In part that is because while seven long medical experts including recommended eight hours of sleep a night spent some time deep in one or non-REM sleep exactly what our bodies make during this period, it is less clear. Now, thanks to new technologies to measure and monitor brain activity, scientists have established the biological processes that occur in good quality sleep. What seem to be much of disorders of the brain to reduce the risk of forgetting the moments older the more serious memory loss and cognitive decline to dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, Franklin the world can convince them that sleep does not do it for the it is lazy. Experts in the field of Alzheimer’s disease are especially excited because we have not been for the neurodegenerative disease, and treatment of sleep-based strategies could open up new ways to slow its progression in some and prevent it in others. “It ‘a real renaissance of research around the connection between sleep, sleep quality, sleep disorders and dementia, in particular Alzheimer’s disease,” says Dr. Kristine Yaffe, professor of psychiatry, neurology and epidemiology at the University of California, San Francisco. The National Institutes of Health is funding at least half a dozen new studies to examine how sleep can affect dementia and Alzheimer’s Association created a committee for further research in the field to promote. For decades, scientists thought sleep a symptom or a result of Alzheimer’s disease were. It is assumed that built as clumps of amyloid proteins, then began to choke and cells, especially kill nerve in the brain’s memory areas following changes in sleep. In addition, older people without Alzheimer’s disease may experience changes in their sleep, sleep less and lighter as they age. So experts do not take seriously at first, this shorter sleep cycles and fragmented. But in the 1980s and 1990s, scientists began when the study was a causal relationship between sleep and cognitive test performance in the elderly without Alzheimer’s disease by studying for longer periods. These studies have suggested rather perform worse that people with poor sleep habits on cognitive tests over time. “This should make us reflect on the possibility that sleep might be a risk factor for dementia,” says Spira. Yaffe of recent research that focuses on a group of healthy older women, supports the idea that what appeared to be important in terms of risk of dementia was the quality in terms of the amount of sleep. Those who spend less time in bed actually reported sleep, and circular time and wake up at night, were quite any type of dementia five to 10 years later develop the quality of better sleep. Others put biology on fire behind the sofa connection dementia to explain. Right now, Alzheimer’s researchers knew that an accumulation in the brain of amyloid and another protein called tau key features were the disease. to accurately track at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, David Holtzman, Chairman, Department of Neurology, studies initiated, where in the brain is amyloid. His research led him to neurons that fragments of the protein release as they go about their normal activities. Typically this byproducts protein (sometimes beta amyloid called) released into the circulation where they float without any problems due to, but in some cases remain in the brain, where they are transformed into a kind of molecular Velcro, amyloid glue plates together, in turn, to make damage neurons. But what controls the production of amyloid-beta? In a 2009 study on mice found that Holtzman while the animals were awake, level of protein fragments increased circulating in their brains. When the mice sleep, the level has fallen dramatically, particularly in the deeper stages of non-REM sleep. And if he and his team drawn from non-REM sleep rats, built more amyloid in the brain over time compared to mice that received normal night of sleep. He saw similar changes from amyloid in the cerebrospinal fluid of people who were well rested against sleep deprivation. It ‘was a revelation for Alzheimer’s experts. “The experimentally demonstrated for the first time a disease effect of sleep deprivation on Alzheimer’s disease,” says Spira. “This is what really put everything upside down.” In 2013, to see if the same effect on humans occurred Spira studied brain scans of 70 healthy adults with an average age of 76. In fact, the scans of those who is less reported or altered sleep showed more levels high levels of amyloid plaques, such as those who slept scans better. A year later, a biological explanation for why poor sleep may be linked to Alzheimer’s disease emerged. Dr. Maiken Nedergaard, co-director of the Center for Translational Neuro medicine at the University of Rochester, identified a previously ignored that duty army of cells called during sleep in the rat brain and acts as a huge pump for leakage inside and out of the brain. The pipe system, which they called the “glymphatic System” (operates in parallel to the lymphatic system that drains from other tissues in the body fluid), seemed a neural rinsing of the brain to perform the toxic proteins generated by active neurons swept (including those fragments of amyloid) and give way to another daily cycle occupied the connection and the network to be deleted. Together with the discovery Holtzman is that the level of amyloid staggered throughout the day and fell during sleep, Nedergaard results gave further credence to the theory that sleep could be a crucial cleaning function to ward off diseases such as Alzheimer lead. “These results are much support the idea that one of the roles of sleep is actually to accelerate the clearance of beta amyloid from the brain,” says Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. indicating the end of last year, Laura Lewis, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Boston University, on Nedergaard plant built by the ebb and correspondence with the brain wave activity in the brain flow of cerebrospinal fluid, the different stages of sleep. It showed that in healthy adults during the day, when the brain is active, there is less fluid bathing the neurons and tissues of the body. During sleep, and especially in the deepest sleep, the brain this saturated solution in a cleaning flood. The discovery reinforces the theory that sleep Nedergaard can help clear the brain of toxic proteins that can possibly cause illness. Yet, while these results are very impressive, they are not what you might call the final scientists. For this, the researchers need two more evidence: First, a clear correlation between sleep disorders and a higher risk of Alzheimer’s; and secondly, that the evidence if they improve high-risk people their sleep, that the risk of falls. They are currently working to build these records, and already the results are promising. For example Volkow baseline concentration measured amyloid in the brains of 20 people aged 22-72 years in good health, then scanned the brains after each good night’s sleep had returned and was kept awake again after all for almost 31 hours. After a loss of sleep, the level of amyloid were more than 5% from adequate sleep; the tips are concentrated in parts of the brain involved in memory and higher thinking affected Alzheimer’s in general. But to see more or less the level of sleep of the amyloid change does not necessarily contribute to Alzheimer’s sleeping habits. to keep doing the researchers this case study people with conditions such as sleep apnea, or those who work night shifts or irregular hours, such as first responders, pilots and flight attendants. Studies suggest that all these groups are more prone to Alzheimer’s disease. The next step is to see if the treatment or changes in sleep habits count. For people with sleep apnea, for example, clinicians can wear devices to hold during sleep prescribing oxygen to substantial flows of the brain, so they do not wake up this. In shift, the researchers want to test the effect of resetting their biological clocks to a standard day-night program. If these efforts reduce their chances of developing Alzheimer’s disease, which would be a strong argument in favor of a link between sleep patterns throughout life and make the risk of dementia. Researchers also need to better understand how sleep medications and treatments such as melatonin affect the dementia process. While some sleeping pills to promote deeper sleep, which seems the decline of the brain to be protective, it is clear that long-term addiction can not maintain the advantage of such drugs there. Although these studies are conducted, many experts believe the figure is already strong enough to at least educate seniors about to begin, especially those with a higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease to develop, to improve their sleep habits. Yaffe, for example, is already doing that with their patients. “Also sleep practical suggestions on where people hygiene best practices such as avoiding caffeine in the evening and blackout her room and stay away from their phones teach them could help you sleep better,” he says. “I’d like to see if this low-cost and have improved the pragmatic knowledge or prevent the decline in Alzheimer’s patients.” She and others believe I can not sleep alone completely prevent Alzheimer’s disease or halt its progression. But along with other therapies that may arise in treating the disease, sleep can be an effective way to help people, their risk even further cuts. It ‘also possible that sleep could keep our brains healthy play an important role in other ways: through metabolism and other cellular functions behind diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure and even cancer control. As the latest research shows sleep is a good night is not a luxury, it is important to keep the brain healthy. Correction August 6 The original version of this story added false information to researchers, whose work showed amyloid during the day and dropped during sleep. E ‘was David Holtzman, not Adam Spira. This appears in the August 17, 2020 issue of time.
image copyright of photography illustrations of Kim KangHee