Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Brains Sweep Themselves Clean of Toxins During Sleep (2013)

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 177 posts

Re: Brains Sweep Themselves Clean of Toxins During Sleep (2013)

#81

Post by HillaryBriss »

agumonkey wrote: post #77
pnathan wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, "toxic" and "toxins" are incredibly vague. I loathe the use of those words, as they are both scary and nearly meaningless.

Fun fact: toxin meant arrow long ago, for taxus, (bark tree ?) which bow were made of. The funny part is that that tree is .. toxic, it embeds alcaloids which can kill. The taxus philogenetic family was often a symbol of death for cultures, and people commited suicide using its "effects". Lastly, those familiar with oncology probably know paclitaxel/taxol; which are molecules derived from these alcaloids for their cy…

just a footnote to your fine comment: the origin of that particular drug is the Pacific Yew

https://dtp.cancer.gov/timeline/flash/success_stories/s2_tax...

this same tree, as you indicate, was also used by Native Americans for making hunting bows

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_bow

Re: Brains Sweep Themselves Clean of Toxins During Sleep (2013)

#83

Post by metamet »

melvinmt wrote: post #73

I thought this was already common knowledge? I remember reading about this about 3 years ago. Specifically in this article about coffee naps http://www.vox.com/2014/8/28/6074177/coffee-naps-caffeine-sc... which links to this Harvard article: http://healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/healthy/matters/benefits...

Well, this article is from October 2013...

Re: Brains Sweep Themselves Clean of Toxins During Sleep (2013)

#84

Post by Klockan »

ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #60

It's interesting that in almost every sleep related article I've read on HN, the overwhelming majority of people who respond about their personal life say that they hate getting up 'early'-for various definitions of early. Surely there are programmers who like getting up early?

I like getting up early since everyone else likes getting in late and leaving late. For example if I arrive at 6 and they at 10 I will get 4 undisturbed hours of work. To get the same amount on the other end I would have to arrive at 3 in the evening.

Re: Brains Sweep Themselves Clean of Toxins During Sleep (2013)

#85

Post by d8421l01vv4r »

Overtonwindow wrote: post #5

Random thought: Could dreams be a result of the processing of toxins? In the same way some "toxins" cause us to hallucinate etc. so too could these toxins, as a side affect of processing?

If dreams only were the result of some cleanup process (i.e. just arbitrary neurons firing), I imagine they would be a lot less coherent and all events would be (stochastically) independent. While dreams usually don't much make a huge lot of sense, they are sometimes quite realistic and "past" events seem to influence "later" events.

Re: Brains Sweep Themselves Clean of Toxins During Sleep (2013)

#86

Post by ChuckMcM »

eckza wrote: post #55
bmelton wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect (but do not know) that you enjoy your sleep because of its restorative effect. If you could obviate the need for the restorative effect, and instead just always feel newly restored, would you still enjoy going to sleep for no reason? Personally, I dislike the need for sleep. I put it off for as long as I can manage, and try to get as little of it as I can get away with. For me, I have a hard time functionin…

Oh my god, think of what this would do to commerce, in terms of a capitalist society. Suddenly, you can take a drug that decreases your need for sleep by 50%. People only need 4h of sleep per night now, for a full nights' sleep - 3h, if you're willing to skimp a little, 2h isn't unheard of (in the way that only getting 4h of sleep a night, now, isn't unheard of either). Suddenly, there's a significant advantage in th…

It is entirely possible that it would evolve differently, perhaps given that not everyone would be available during the 'dark' hours you might see a society evolve into dual function, where 8 hours were for 'working' and 8 hours were for 'community/family' with 8 hours split into two 4 hour segments as 'transition times'.

Re: Brains Sweep Themselves Clean of Toxins During Sleep (2013)

#87

Post by twinkletwinkle »

che_shirecat wrote: post #76
zip1234 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe some sort of mechanical pumping system? If it takes too much energy away from the brain to both remain awake and clear those proteins, a mechanical pump that is powered externally could solve that energy problem. (I'm only half joking--we already have mechanical means of replacing other biological functions such as a dialysis machine).

Along this line of thinking, if we knew exactly what was happening in the brain during sleep, could we speed up the process with mechanical/chemical means? Could we turn off brain functions to shrink the cells (or co-opt the existing sleep process and do this after one has fallen asleep), do the cleaning process (faster, while keeping the same effect) then wake up for maybe 30 minutes total of "sleep" a day? I person…

The elbow surgery that baseball pitchers sometimes need. There were reports of pitchers throwing better afterwards, which led to young aspiring pitchers with healthy elbows requesting the surgery. I don't know much about the actual process, I was just reading an article about the ethics of operating on a normal elbow in order to gain some competitive advantage.

Re: Brains Sweep Themselves Clean of Toxins During Sleep (2013)

#88

Post by ericd »

bmelton wrote: post #41
mrzool wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why force things? I don't want 50% more waking hours. I enjoy my sleep tremendously.

I suspect (but do not know) that you enjoy your sleep because of its restorative effect. If you could obviate the need for the restorative effect, and instead just always feel newly restored, would you still enjoy going to sleep for no reason? Personally, I dislike the need for sleep. I put it off for as long as I can manage, and try to get as little of it as I can get away with. For me, I have a hard time functionin…

I would guess that the brain also does some reorganization functions while you sleep, where redundant info is compressed, and resources are freed up so that you can reuse them. Being conscious a larger percentage of the time may inhibit this.

Re: Brains Sweep Themselves Clean of Toxins During Sleep (2013)

#89

Post by cbsmith »

afarrell wrote: post #16

My alma mater has a saying: "sleep is for the weak". If you go to a university with that slogan, here is one more reason why it is foolish. If you want to learn effectively and work efficiently, take care of your body and take care of your brain.

I always believed that line is intended to be sarcastic.

Re: Brains Sweep Themselves Clean of Toxins During Sleep (2013)

#90

Post by Helmet »

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #34
jpm_sd wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MIT

It's a shame what these "top" schools can get away with because of the sacrifices some people are willing to put themselves through to get a coveted degree.

Can't argue with the results.

http://libguides.mit.edu/c.php?g=176016&p=1159581

Post reply on HN