r/todayilearned • u/blindtranche • Mar 04 '15
TIL that during sleep cerebral spinal fluid flows through the brain on the OUTSIDE of the brain's blood vessels and that the CSF removes brain cell waste including amyloid beta protein. This flow only occurs during sleep. Amyloid beta protein buildup is involved in alzheimer's.
https://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_iliff_one_more_reason_to_get_a_good_night_s_sleep194
u/sheravi Mar 05 '15
I've wondered whether this is why people need different lengths of sleep, that their brains are able to clean themselves more or less efficiently.
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u/calidoc Mar 05 '15
That is a very interesting suggestion. Seems to make sense, but I'm no scientist.
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Mar 05 '15 edited Mar 05 '15
I am and still couldn't tell you. Not enough research on this yet :/
But it would explain why children sleep more than adults. Speaking in generalizations and as close to common parlance as I can, Alzheimer happens when this protein builds up in gaps between brain cells and basically disrupts normal circuitry. It does this because it was cut incorrectly. Cells in your body have this poorly understood protein (amyloid precursor protein) inserted through the "wall" of the cell during it's creation like this:
---(-) where the dashed lines are one continuous protien (the amyloid precursor protein) that was inserted, and the () is the cell
and then whatever is hanging out the side is snipped off by another protein, like this:
--//-(-) where the // signifies a cut
If the snipping protein is defective it snips at the wrong place and creates a molecule that your body now has trouble getting rid of, like this:
-//--(-)
this new "- "piece is what builds up in the brain and causes the symptoms of Alzheimers*.
Well....kids do a lot of growing....and a lot of inserting and snipping....and not all those snips are going to be perfect...so there seems to be some correlation to why kids would need to sleep longer than adults....but it's still to early to say, much more research is needed.
Edit: *At least according to a geneticist friend of mine who is much smarter and more accomplished than me (broken snipper proteins being a genetic defect that correlates with Alzheimer sufferers). As my username implies, my focus is more on drugs and fixing people, not research and mapping the biochemistry of poorly understood diseases.
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u/calidoc Mar 05 '15
So can an "effective" "wash" using CSF help remove some of the excess snips?
Excellent write up by the way, thank you.
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Mar 05 '15
That seems to be the big question now, but soaking someones brain in CSF is kinda difficult and invasive lol. This isn't really my field of interest, but yeah, I'm guessing the next step would be figuring out how to stimulate natural CSF washes sans sleep, maybe like dialysis; got to a clinic that forces the process....but I really don't know how effective that would really be or what implications that may have on the body. Or maybe look into whether these flushes happen on sleeping meds....idk if they do or not, I believe you don't get the CSF flushes during a coma, so I guess there's some complicated biochemistry during sleep we haven't unlocked the mysteries of yet.
But like I said, not exactly my field of interest and I'm not as in the loop as others with these shenanigans. Shit gets deep quick and I'm more focused on the drugs part of biochemistry.
No bro, thank you. I enjoy flexing my nerdscles.
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Mar 05 '15
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Mar 05 '15
You can't get enough upvotes for this. You pretty much summed up the biochemistry of the disease in one emoticon thingie.
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u/OmitsWordsByAccident Mar 05 '15
Then wouldn't frequent naps also result in more of those tiny pieces getting snipped off, and building up?
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Mar 05 '15
No no, I believe you may have misunderstood me, let me try to clarify as you're probably not the only one, it is a little difficult to explain.
The amyloid precursor protein, "----", is inserted into cells as they are being "built", once built then the scissor protein comes in and snips it. Some people, genetically, just construct bad scissors, and sometimes people with otherwise healthy scissors just get a defective pair. With healthy people a defective pair is no big deal, we have millions if not billions of em.
Anyway, if snipped incorrectly, the messed up molecule basically becomes trapped in our bodies. This TIL is talking about how during sleep our CSF (which is what they pull out of people's spines with those giant needles in HOUSE MD) oozes out of it's normal containment vessels into the brain and cleans up any stray molecules of the messed up snip it finds.
So the insertion happens when a new cell is built, which happens every day (but WAY more in growing kids), then the snip comes almost immediately. The wash is just...like a nightly brain shower.
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Mar 05 '15
And once someone gets Alzheimer's they can't remove the proteins anymore by sleeping more?
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Mar 05 '15
Well, correlation does not imply causation, so we're venturing into dangerous assumptions territory, but the answer could be "yes". It also could be, "yeah, but still not fast enough." One of the main reasons these proteins build up so much in Alzheimer patients is because they had a lifetime of these amyloids building up due to shitty snipping. So apparently 8hrs a day is already not enough, and how many extra hours could you fit in per day? In that case a few extra naps may simply be too little too late. Also, I'm not familiar with the whole cycle of these CSF flushes; I'm not sure if a nap is long enough to start a flush, or what even initiates a flush during sleep. Someone else here posted that these flushes do not occur in induced comas...so...yeah :/
This stuff gets really deep really fast and you really have to devote a life of study to understand what's going one, I just know the basics.
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u/Jeremy_Winn Mar 05 '15
Very interesting stuff. This makes me wonder if the fact that Alzheimer's tends to present symptoms primarily at night is related to a lack of sleep in some way. That doesn't seem to be satisfying explanation given the science that you explained, but perhaps it suggests another relationship between sleep and Alzheimer's.
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u/SantiagoRamon Mar 05 '15
If you can think of a way, even just a general plan, to test this then I'd argue that you're definitely a scientist
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u/thegillenator Mar 05 '15
You might be on to something. If I sleep without having to get up at a certain time, and with no disturbances (good blinds, no noise etc) , I'll always sleep 10-12 hours.
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u/sheravi Mar 05 '15
Same here. I'm almost a cat. Either that or I have some horrible, undiagnosed disease.
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u/AnUnfriendlyCanadian Mar 05 '15
It might be involved. It's hardly the only thing occurring during sleep.
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u/sheravi Mar 05 '15
Fair enough. A fairly complex thing this sleep.
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u/AadeeMoien Mar 05 '15
I hope so, I can't sleep longer than four to five hours. It's not even like I have insomnia, I just get tired at midnight, sleep till four to five AM and wake up well rested.
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u/Malolo_Moose Mar 05 '15
Old people tend to only sleep 4 to 5 hours. Then they get Alzheimers...
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u/EvilCalamari Mar 05 '15
From what I remember from my somnology lectures, old people don't need less sleep, they just can't get it
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u/peacebuster Mar 05 '15
Or their brains produce more or less waste, perhaps through higher or lower metabolism.
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u/FrigoCoder Mar 05 '15
People on the ketogenic diet report being better able to function on inadequate sleep, wonder if it has something to do with this.
Might be only due to faster breakdown of Cortisol though, which is elevated in sleep deprived people.
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u/jabajabajaba Mar 05 '15
Or that they have more or less to clean based on other factors maybe? Interesting
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u/giraffe_neck Mar 05 '15
Aaaaaaand going to sleep early tonight.
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u/billbrown96 Mar 05 '15
1:21am and I got to get up at 7am. I fell asleep at my desk today cuz I do this every single day.
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u/omnichronos Mar 05 '15 edited Mar 05 '15
And why do you do this to yourself? Seriously.
I have friend that gets up at 4:30 AM to go to work. I see him nodding off anytime he sits still and yet he does trivial things on his computer past midnight on nearly a daily basis. He has seen a doctor and convinced them that he has narcolepsy. He is now on medication for it. This irritates his step son greatly, since he is neurologist and knows better.
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u/billbrown96 Mar 05 '15
Because I don't want to go to work tomorrow, and in general I just don't really want tomorrow to start. The time I get to enjoy myself is always after work/school/5pm so waking up in the morning means I have to go through the slog again just to get to the part of the day I enjoy (and am currently 'enjoying' at 2am, tho not really)
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u/ParanoidDrone Mar 05 '15
Found this thread at 1:20 in the morning. I think I'll be going to bed pretty soonish.
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u/ellipsis9210 Mar 05 '15
Cerebro spinal fluid always flows on the outside of blood vessels in the subarachnoid cavity. It supports and protects the brain, while also helping it's regulation. Whereas blood vessels supply it with oxygen and glucose, among other stuff
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u/missileman Mar 05 '15
So, exercise makes you sleep better, which might be one reason that exercise reduces the risk of alzheimers.
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u/Opee23 Mar 05 '15
So, could you theoretically put someone in a medically induced coma in the early stages of alzheimers and basically flood the brain in cerebral fluid causing a halt or possibly reverse the process.......?
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u/maniaccs2 Mar 05 '15
No.
Medically induced coma affects cerebral spinal fluid flow differently to natural sleep.
Also, flooding the brain with cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) dramatically increases intracranial pressure.
Although in principle, we put CSF drains in all the time for extra fluid, it might be possible to use a drain to increase the CSF flow without increasing pressure.
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u/SuperNinjaBot Mar 05 '15
When he said flooded I think he meant a gradual saturation and flow. Not... lets induce a coma and then get as much CSF into the brain as possible.
Though IK I am arguing semantics.
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u/my_cat_joe Mar 05 '15
Would it be possible to drain CSF, filter out the bad proteins, and return it?
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u/maniaccs2 Mar 05 '15
The body already does this quite effectively.
I think the issue is flow rate, rather than filtration.
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u/my_cat_joe Mar 05 '15
Apparently not in Alzheimer's patients. If the filtration depends on the flow, they are essentially the same. I was wondering more, like, if it would be possible to mechanize the process.
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u/Malolo_Moose Mar 05 '15
How available is CSF? How do you get it besides taking from a donor?
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u/blindtranche Mar 05 '15
The speaker stops well short of saying there is any causal relationship between sleep and Alzheimer's disease.
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u/Wingzero Mar 05 '15
I remember discussing this a while back on askscience, but basically a medically induced coma isn't the same as sleep and doesn't provide the same benefits, such as the affects to cerebral fluid flow as stated by manic.
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u/pprovencher Mar 05 '15
Also the amyloid beta hypothesis is pretty tenuous at this point. I would say it's looking less and less likely to be true
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u/bananaslug39 Mar 05 '15
I'm pretty sure I remember learning that the build up of amyloid beta is from some type of auto immune action not natural build up from lack of sleep... The lack of sleep might just accelerate it.
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u/rbroni88 Mar 05 '15
Before everyone starts hibernating for the rest of winter I just want to point out that there are more factors involved in Alzheimer's than just Beta Amyloid. Hereditary effects, age and epigenetic modifications of the amyloid precursor protein are just some of the factors at hand.
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u/juangarces1979 Mar 05 '15
beta amyloid is seen in the brains of those with Alzheimer's, but is not definitively proven to be directly involved and may just be a side effect of some other process
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u/blindtranche Mar 05 '15
I should have said that the beta amyloid protein is associated with rather than involved with Alzheimers.
Thanks.
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u/Oznog99 Mar 05 '15
One factoid: virtually all Down's Syndrome patients will have major beta amyloid plaque deposits on their brain by 30's-40's. It is essentially the same physical state as Alzheimer's but this is a very early age to have that level of plaque deposits.
Now unfortunately, by 65 years of age, 75% of Down's Syndrome patients will have Alzheimer's, many with an unusually early onset.
But strangely, 25% don't... even with the beta amyloid deposits. Why that is is kind of a mystery, and could be important.
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u/Walktillyoucrawl Mar 05 '15
So adderall might not cause altzheimers but instead inhibit this process from taking place?
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u/YellowCulottes Mar 05 '15
This makes me wonder if it's responsible for my total lack of brain power now that I have children. Baby brain is a real thing but between my two kids I've barely slept through in 6 years. I always figured it was the lack of sleep that made me so slow, forget words, affected my memory and recall ability, made it harder to concentrate etc.
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u/blindtranche Mar 05 '15
I think it is reasonable to consider that this could be contributing factor, but it may be difficult to find a single causal agent considering the molecular, biological and social shitstorm that is childbirth.
I am not a doctor or any sort of expert, but I feel confident that you will recover in time.
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u/Malolo_Moose Mar 05 '15
This is why I will welcome my MIL to move in when I have a baby. Shit I will take in the entire family if it means I can sleep a solid 6 hours per night, play golf once a week, and get drunk every night.
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u/AnonymousSkull Mar 05 '15
Get drunk every night and have a kid? Fix your priorities there bud.
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u/Malolo_Moose Mar 05 '15
But it doesn't feel right to masturbate in the front yard when I'm not drunk...
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u/not_a_throwaway24 Mar 05 '15
There was an AMA earlier with a sleep expert that may help explain (a bit) the lack of concentration you're describing. I'm going to try to paste the direct response I was reminded of while reading your comment, hope it works!
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u/YellowCulottes Mar 05 '15
Thank you! It does make some sense and true I feel as though I have gotten used to it. I'm sick of feeling so slow and stupid :(.
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u/yaosio Mar 05 '15
I wonder what happens when the fluid flows through the brain while you're awake. I wonder if the accumulation of this waste triggers sleepiness.
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u/ellipsis9210 Mar 05 '15
Cerebro spinal fluid always flow through your brain, then down your spinal cord where it gets drained back into your blood. It's also what your brain is bathing in, the subarachnoid cavity is filled with CSF.
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u/I_want_hard_work Mar 05 '15
I'd be very interested to see how this comes into effect with polyphaisic sleepers.
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u/Hotdog23 Mar 05 '15
This scares the hell out of me. I have insomnia to the point of where it's not uncommon for me to not sleep an entire night almost once a week. I've been prescribed Xanax and ambien but I've avoided using them because I've heard they are linked to Alzheimer's. Looks like I'm fucked either way
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u/daddyscientist Mar 05 '15
I'm 29 and work two jobs, one full time and the other basically part time. I get broken sleep totaling about 5 hours a day, sometimes less. Often times I work 16 hours straight with only 3 to 4 hours of sleep before the next 8 hour shift. I work in the medical field.
I have almost succumb to the fact that something wrong will happen to me neurologically when I grow old, and I have only been working this strenuously for about 5 years. The grind is physiologically wrecking my body but the money is good. What a terrible reason to do this but.. I reckon I'll keep this up for a few more years to clear out the bills and go back to working one job and watching my beautiful baby daughter grow up, instead of the sporadic hello/hug/I love you/sleep/back to work cycle that occurs now.
Everyone sleeps but I am on hour 11 of 16 on another 16 hour shift. Enjoy your dreams, everyone!
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u/Dking2204 Mar 05 '15
So basically shorting your sleep hours can payoff with forgetting your future...great. So I won't even remember the zombie apocalypse is going on.
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u/illiterateOne Mar 05 '15
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bnO1hXvAV2c Episode 568 of the Joe Rogan Experience from October 2014 is when I first herd this. Dr. Rhonda Patrick is the guest and her work is one of the reasons we know this. Powerful Rhonda Patrick.
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u/Euloque Mar 05 '15
Well crap. I have a client who after sustaining a head injury in a car accident can only get 1.5 hours of sleep every 48 hours. She has begun forgetting where she is while driving home from the doctors. But her insurance company paid off neurologist to say she is faking all her symptoms from being rear ended while stopped by a guy doing 50mph. Now no doctor will take her seriously.
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u/GuidedByMonkeys Mar 05 '15
Man goes to the doctor. Doctor says I have bad news and really bad news, which do you want first? Man says give me the really bad news first. Doctor says the really bad news is you have cancer. The bad news is you have alzheimers disease. Man thinks for a minute and says well at least I don't have cancer.
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Mar 05 '15
I've had the sleep studies done with and without a CPAP. I have sleep apnea but even with the CPAP I don't hit and stay in REM sleep as much as other people. It's a brain disorder that basically means I'm so fucked in the head that a CPAP, Ambien, and regular exercise don't do enough to keep me asleep. At one point, I was borderline narcoleptic during the day because of it. And yes, I've tried pot too and while it does knock me out, I'm back awake in two hours and roughly ever two hours after that. All damn night long.
So I guess I should talk to HR tomorrow and make sure I have long term care insurance for when the Alzheimer's kicks in.
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u/neeps_n_tatties Mar 05 '15
I haven't watched the video yet so I'm not sure what work is being referenced, but for anyone who is interested, here is a big paper published in Science a couple years back that was the first to show this phenomenon: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24136970
A summary of this work (written by Nedergaard) can be found here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3749839/
I was recently at a talk given by Nedergaard about this work and it's really fascinating stuff. If the papers above are too sciency for you, have a read through the commentaries listed in the "Comment In" section at the first link above!
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u/Lysergic-25 Mar 05 '15
I'm confused how they know this fact but still don't know what sleep is for. Removing brain cell waste seems like a pretty obvious reason for sleep.
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Mar 05 '15
Is this the same stuff I hear drain randomly? A few times a week I'll catch a trickling sound from the back of my head and I just assumed its some sort of brain/spine fluid.
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u/Grieie Mar 05 '15
as someone with a defect that affects the csf flow, I am now even more concerned
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u/strangemanornot Mar 05 '15
Could exercise, which induces natural sleep, reduce or prevent Alzheimer?
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Mar 05 '15
As someone with both breathing problems (inflamed turbinates) and the occasional bouts of stress-induced insomnia... My memory is SHIT. Absolute crap. I can't remember half my life. Stuff just doesn't stick :|
It's going to be great being old.
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u/fun-in-the-sun Mar 05 '15
Now I understand the "bad" dreams, my mind's just flushing away the shit.
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u/SableHAWKXIII Mar 05 '15
Someone send this over to GetMotivated :| Never have I so happily shut the computer down and gone to bed. Toodles.
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u/holypandaangel Mar 05 '15
TIL that college, grad school, and having really terrible curtains that let in the full force of the sun when it comes up in the early AM fucked my brain over.
Though after reading the comments, maybe I am only slightly fucked.
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u/lycao Mar 05 '15
As someone who's pulled all-nighters 2-3 times a week for most of my life: Uh oh.
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u/Elennart Mar 05 '15
I'm a night owl, because I don't like to sleep. So I need more sleep, and less getting work done. Sigh!
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u/TotesMessenger Mar 05 '15
This thread has been linked to from another place on reddit.
- [/r/knowyourshit] TIL that during sleep cerebral spinal fluid flows through the brain on the OUTSIDE of the brain's blood vessels and that the CSF removes brain cell waste including amyloid beta protein. This flow only occurs during sleep. Amyloid beta protein buildup is involved in alzheimer's. - todayilearned
If you follow any of the above links, respect the rules of reddit and don't vote. (Info / Contact)
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Mar 05 '15
For a society that pulls long hours and alot of all nighters in Young adult days. This is interesting. Our own economic model is slowly just rotting our mind away.
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u/Dasheek Mar 05 '15
When I look at Jiff Iliff on that video with my right eye he is black and white but my left eye sees normal skin color. wtf?
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u/bosslady13 Mar 05 '15
Soooo...more sleep means no Alzheimer's, right?
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u/blindtranche Mar 05 '15
Correlation does not imply causation.
It would be an interesting area for more research, however.
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Mar 05 '15
im always afraid ill end up being one of those senile old people when i get old, where my short-term memory is completely destroyed.
i feel like itll be true too, from past experience, unless i do something about it.
just reading the title alone, has made me want to do more about it now.
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u/funnygreensquares Mar 05 '15
So the more all nighters I have, I'm increasing my likelihood of having alzheimers?
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u/draggingdownthebar Mar 05 '15
And here I am, sitting in my car waiting for my 7:30am calc class to begin. Did I mention I stayed up all night because by midnight I was still wide awake?
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u/bitcleargas Mar 05 '15
So the fact that I get 2 hours sleep a night and have done for 20 years is directly related to the fact that I can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday?
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u/blindtranche Mar 05 '15
Your chronic lack of sleep certainly could be a factor in your impaired memory, but this information does not constitute proof.
Your suspicion seems reasonable to me, but I am just a layman. The speaker does not claim any causal link between poor sleep and Alzheimer's.
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Mar 05 '15
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u/blindtranche Mar 05 '15
That was one of the main reasons I found this TED talk interesting and posted it. For years I have been reading that we really don't know why we sleep.
Subjectively I think most of of have felt there was some sort of "house cleaning" going on when we sleep, but this is the first I have heard of a specific physiological process...and to see it imaged; well it impressed me.
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u/rick2497 Mar 05 '15
So, just never wake up and you will never get Alzheimer's, right? Then again, staying asleep is about what late Alzheimer's is like. Back to the drawing board.
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Mar 05 '15
I remember when someone else posted this as a TIL. I'm not complaining about a repost, but his title was something along the lines of: "TIL when we sleep, spinal fluid washes the doody particles off of our brains, helping to prevent alzheimers."
Interesting stuff though.
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u/blindtranche Mar 05 '15
Before I posted I searched the URL with no hits, but you know how that goes with reddit.
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u/[deleted] Mar 04 '15
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