Sleep Flushes Toxins from the Brain

Post by aestra » Fri, Oct 18, 2013, 3:53 PM UTC

foobarbazqux wrote: post #15

sillysaurus2 wrote: post #11

A "toxin" is something which is toxic to a system. But our knowledge of the brain is so primitive that we can't reasonably claim to know which chemicals are toxic at tiny, long-term dosage levels, unless it leads to death. There is no evidence that it's possible to die directly from sleep deprivation. Therefore this seems a dubious headline.

If you don't sleep for long enough (about 7 days), you'll start to have visual and auditory hallucinations and also delusional thinking. You'll also experience severely reduced effectiveness of just about every system in your body. You might not die if you don't sleep for a year (say), but you'll probably get permanent brain damage.

Post by lee » Fri, Oct 18, 2013, 5:07 PM UTC

srd wrote: post #79

drewcrawford wrote: post #69

This appears to have an interesting implication for FFI [1], a mysterious genetic disease that causes complete insomnia in adults and results in death. The final stage of FFI is dementia. It turns out that the β-amyloids that are cleared during sleep according to this paper, are associated with certain types of dementia in the general population [2]. It also turns out that certain sleep disorders are dementia predict…

Is it known if there are ways to support the cleanup process? I ask because due to allergies I have constant sinus congestions and as a result a very light sleep. On average I wake up (to the point where I'm consciously aware that I'm awake) 2 to 4 times per night, persumably due to lack of oxygen. I'm noticing memory issues; and while the process may not be reversable, I would like to halt it or at least slow it dow…

Post by comrade_ogilvy » Fri, Oct 18, 2013, 6:32 PM UTC

wtvanhest wrote: post #81

jessriedel wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I appreciate your logic, but there is a wide variety of needed levels of sleep among different animals, and even among different individual humans which tells me that some are more efficient than others at sleeping (maybe clearing toxins?). As efficient as evolution is, the ability not to sleep as much may not be a huge determinant in reproduction. Just 100 years ago, people worked all day, then relaxed and slept. Th…

Post by jessriedel » Sat, Oct 19, 2013, 12:55 AM UTC

wtvanhest wrote: post #81

jessriedel wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I appreciate your logic, but there is a wide variety of needed levels of sleep among different animals, and even among different individual humans which tells me that some are more efficient than others at sleeping (maybe clearing toxins?). As efficient as evolution is, the ability not to sleep as much may not be a huge determinant in reproduction. Just 100 years ago, people worked all day, then relaxed and slept. Th…