Awesome. One very (very very) small step closer to creating a pill to help the flushing process so we may sleep less, or not at all.
Sleep Flushes Toxins from the Brain
51–60 of 98 posts
Re: Sleep Flushes Toxins from the Brain
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
The question on everyone's mind now is, can you bypass that need?
I have a sneaking suspicion that would be like pumping oxygen directly into the blood and then trying to hold your breath - even though you technically don't need to breathe, millions of years of evolutionary tricks will make sure you do. Try telling your brain that it does not need to sleep after 72 hours just because you have cleared up the toxins
Actually, this would work. But O2 isn't the problem, the CO2 is. You'll need a process to filter the CO2 out of your blood, as that's what causes your body's breathing reflex to occur. If you could filter the CO2 from the blood stream, while also providing O2, you would literally not need to breath.
"Intravenous Oxygen Injection For Patients Who Cannot Breathe" http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/247295.php
Re: Sleep Flushes Toxins from the Brain
#53I always wondered about how split-brain theory would work into this... I mean there are stories of people with half their brain removed who are fully functional (I think? I can't find a source atm). I wonder what would happen if half your brain could be on/off and switch? Also you'd think that any mutation optimizing for time awake would have decimated the other creatures? I don't get how evolution has conquered ever…
There are actually animals that sleep half a brain at once: all the marine mammals. A dolphin can't just fall asleep underwater (it will drown), so it sleeps half at a time.
There are creatures that sleep very little (Giraffes, etc.) But there's large benefits to sleep, and for most animals it's worth the cost, especially since you don't want to burn piles of calories during non-peak hunting/foraging hours anyway.
Re: Sleep Flushes Toxins from the Brain
#54I always wondered about how split-brain theory would work into this... I mean there are stories of people with half their brain removed who are fully functional (I think? I can't find a source atm). I wonder what would happen if half your brain could be on/off and switch? Also you'd think that any mutation optimizing for time awake would have decimated the other creatures? I don't get how evolution has conquered ever…
On that post about a bird that fly for 6 months in a row there were a discussion about the sleep in animals. Some of them are able to sleep alternating one half sleeping and the other aware of the environment. And there is speculation if that bird could sleep while flying.
I think half brain awake is not enough to have a fully functional life. I also heard about people losing part of their brain and adapting to deal with it. But that doesn't mean a brain doesn't need that part. It is like the fallacy of using only 10% of the brain. The brain is very well used and optmized for performance, if you lose part of it, it would adapt to compensate what is missing, but it will not be optimized anymore.
Disclosure: just guessing here, I have no scientific knowledge or background at all to support these claims of mine.
Re: Sleep Flushes Toxins from the Brain
#55"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," Sure sounds like part of the wake-sleep algorithm, which is impressive given that the wake-sleep algorithm was named in the mid-90s.
What about meditation? Does mediation allow for "asleep" like cleanup activities whilst in the "awake" state?
Re: Sleep Flushes Toxins from the Brain
#56It would be nice if my computer did all scan/cleanup defrag ops after I shut it down and go to sleep
Re: Sleep Flushes Toxins from the Brain
#57"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," Sure sounds like part of the wake-sleep algorithm, which is impressive given that the wake-sleep algorithm was named in the mid-90s.
> "The brain ... must choose between two different functional states - awake and aware or asleep and cleaning up"
As any lucid dreamer can tell you, there's also a third option--asleep and aware.
Re: Sleep Flushes Toxins from the Brain
#58I always wondered about how split-brain theory would work into this... I mean there are stories of people with half their brain removed who are fully functional (I think? I can't find a source atm). I wonder what would happen if half your brain could be on/off and switch? Also you'd think that any mutation optimizing for time awake would have decimated the other creatures? I don't get how evolution has conquered ever…
>you'd think that any mutation optimizing for time awake would have decimated the other creatures?
Maybe the specialization into day/night has something to do with it. The decimator would need to stand their ground against nocturnal creatures at night and diurnal creatues at day.
Re: Sleep Flushes Toxins from the Brain
#59When I hear "toxins", I think of a developer on a project I helped manage. He was having health problems so he had to take a 1-1.5 month sabbatical to India to be cleansed of toxins. If I remember correctly the end result was that he quit.
While I do believe there that the body cleanses itself from toxins, and I can't say for certain whether the developer that left us got his toxins cleansed or not, this article and study smells of B.S.
The second tip off is the quoted doctor's name: Dr. Nedergaard
Scientists with Dutch/Scandinavian names always seem to produce the most crap science on average in my experience. I have no idea why, but I've noticed it. Especially when it comes to the "positive affects" of pot. I know that is an over-generalization, but someone should do a study on that to see if it's true. Preferably one without as many A's in his/her last name.
Re: Sleep Flushes Toxins from the Brain
#60Awesome. One very (very very) small step closer to creating a pill to help the flushing process so we may sleep less, or not at all.
Seems unlikely. Essentially all animals with a brain sleep, even flies. You'd need to find a pill that could do something that not one animal was able to evolve to do over hundreds of millions of years. Something that was extremely calorie intensive is all I can imagine.