The brain uses sleep to wash away the waste toxins built up during a hard days thinking, researchers have shown.The US team believe the ‘waste removal system’ is one of the fundamental reasons for sleep. Their study, in the journal Science, showed brain cells shrink during sleep to open up the gaps between neurons and allow fluid to wash the brain clean.They also suggest that failing to clear away some toxic proteins may play a role in brain disorders.It has been shown to have a big role in the fixing of memories in the brain and learning, but a team at the University of Rochester Medical Centre believe that ‘housework’ may be one of the primary reasons for sleep.“The brain only has limited energy at its disposal and it appears that it must choose between two different functional states–awake and aware or asleep and cleaning up,” said researcher Dr Maiken Nedergaard.“You can think of it like having a house party. You can either entertain the guests or clean up the house, but you cant really do both at the same time.”PlumbingTheir findings build on last year’s finding of the brain’s network of plumbing pipes, known as the glymphatic system, which carry waste material out of the brain.Scientists, who imaged the brains of mice, showed that the glymphatic system became 10-times more active when the mice were asleep.Cells in the brain, probably the glial cells which keep nerve cells alive, shrink during sleep. This increases the size of the interstitial space, the gaps between brain tissue, allowing more fluid to be pumped in and wash the toxins away.Dr Nedergaard said this was a ‘vital’ function for staying alive.“This is purely speculation, but it looks like the brain is losing a lot of energy when pumping water across the brain and that is probably incompatible with processing information,” she said, adding that the true significance of the findings would be known only after human studies. Commenting on the research, Dr Neil Stanley, an independent sleep expert, said: “This is a very interesting study that shows sleep is essential downtime to do some housekeeping to flush out neurotoxins.“There is good data on memory and learning, the psychological reason for sleep. But this is the actual physical and chemical reason for sleep, something is happening which is important.”Dr Raphaelle Winsky-Sommerer, a lecturer in sleep at Surrey University, said: “It’s not surprising, our whole physiology is changing during sleep. The novelty is the role of the interstitial space. The significance is that, yet again, it shows sleep may contribute to the restoration of brain cell function and may have protective effects.”Many conditions that lead to loss of brain cells such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease are characterised by the build-up of damaged proteins in the brain.The researchers suggest that problems with the brain’s cleaning mechanism may contribute to such diseases.
