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

Evidence of the body’s waste system in the human brain

nih.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–97 of 97 posts

Re: Evidence of the body’s waste system in the human brain

#91

Post by karmajunkie »

MyNameHere wrote: post #57
blubb-fish wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most professionals in the field of medicine were educated towards an elitist and dogmatic mindset. When I talk with a physician about the human body I always get the impression they really believe the body works as described in the books - exactly like that. Most of them didn't seem to have noticed or learned that what we know about medicine is just theory approximating reality and all of those theories had to be upd…

Medical doctors are not Ph.D.'s. They are technicians, more akin to an auto mechanic than a scientist.

I make the same analogy all the time, but I'm reminded of an old joke[1]:

A mechanic was removing a cylinder-head from the motor of a Harley motorcycle when he spotted a well-known cardiologist in his shop.

The cardiologist was there waiting for the service manager to come and take a look at his bike when the mechanic shouted across the garage.

"Hey, Doc, want to take a look at this?"

The cardiologist, a bit surprised, walked over to where the mechanic was working on the motorcycle.

The mechanic straightened up, wiped his hands on a rag and asked, "So Doc, look at this engine. I open its' heart, take the valves out, repair any damage, and then put them back in, and when I finish, it works just like new. So how come I make $39,675 a year and you get the really big bucks ($1,695,759) when you and I are doing basically the same work?"

The cardiologist paused, smiled and leaned over, then whispered to the mechanic.....

"Try doing it with the engine running."

[1] Found a better version than the one I was screwing up in the retelling at https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/983804-joke-harley-mechan...

Re: Evidence of the body’s waste system in the human brain

#93

Post by justifier »

lr4444lr wrote: post #41
etiam wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kipnis made a mention of this in an interview closer to the actual discovery: As to how the brain’s lymphatic vessels managed to escape notice all this time, Kipnis described them as “very well hidden” and noted that they follow a major blood vessel down into the sinuses, an area difficult to image. “It’s so close to the blood vessel, you just miss it,” he said. “If you don’t know what you’re after, you just miss it.…

Then what of the Italian scientist who noted them 200 years ago? All of those dissections and attention to research in the modern age and it was actually taught in medical school that the brain had no lymphatic system? Seems a little far-fetched.

Your comment reminded me of this recent video documenting something similar: https://youtu.be/faVlZRGyBDs

Video description:

Leonardo became obsessed with the heart in the latter period of his remarkable life. He made a prediction about the main blood vessel leaving the heart, the aorta. He had figured out how the flow of blood out of the heart actually closes the aortic valve.

Leonardo had no way of testing it and no way of seeing inside a working heart. For centuries no one else even speculated. But in the last 50 years technology has finally been invented to show that he was absolutely right.

Re: Evidence of the body’s waste system in the human brain

#94

Post by quicknir »

autokad wrote: post #61
blubb-fish wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most professionals in the field of medicine were educated towards an elitist and dogmatic mindset. When I talk with a physician about the human body I always get the impression they really believe the body works as described in the books - exactly like that. Most of them didn't seem to have noticed or learned that what we know about medicine is just theory approximating reality and all of those theories had to be upd…

one time i got a sore throat and fevor, the fevor wouldnt break for 7 days. the entire time i could feel the spot where my sickness was coming from. i looked in a mirror and there were puss modules - classic strep throat. I go to the doctor, she does the strep test and it comes back negative, she refuses to prescribe me antibiotics and told me to just go home and rest. luckily, i had a penicillin script that I didnt…

Fyi for a healthy person taking anti biotics for strep has almost no effect (reduces symptoms by like 12 hours) except you stop being contagious much faster. So it wasn't really that critical.

Re: Evidence of the body’s waste system in the human brain

#95

Post by e40 »

blubb-fish wrote: post #30

This is very interesting for martial arts practitioners. It's highly plausible that this waste system is the missing link between Parkinson and Alzheimer and concussions due to head strikes. I'd assume that a strike to the head will - if severe enough - first impair the dura mater. This might impair the waste system and by that facilitate inflammations in the long run.

I wonder what the mechanism is for non-concussed people with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's? Is it related to the dura?

Re: Evidence of the body’s waste system in the human brain

#96

Post by ggm »

indubitable wrote: post #25
ggm wrote: post #11

Am I alone in finding it stunning that it's 2017 and we can still discover new anatomy? How can this not have been (re)discovered?

Looking at this abstractly, there is a fun quote from Albert Michelson in 1894: "While it is never safe to affirm that the future of Physical Science has no marvels in store even more astonishing than those of the past, it seems probable that most of the grand underlying principles have been firmly established and that further advances are to be sought chiefly in the rigorous application of these principles to all th…

I'm making a comment about gross anatomical structure. Not "where is the seat of consciousness" but "this thing here? its a lymph tube" -thats a single, simple gross morphological observation: tubes have walls. tubes have boundaries.

This is not the only 'how can we not know this' thing which happens, I read a few years back that fundamental nervous system linkages (as in, the actual nerves themselves) of the clitoris had not been mapped in the 20th century because nobody felt like it mattered enough until women anatomists started looking more carefully at the cadavers...

Re: Evidence of the body’s waste system in the human brain

#97

Post by ggm »

manmal wrote: post #22
ggm wrote: post #11

Am I alone in finding it stunning that it's 2017 and we can still discover new anatomy? How can this not have been (re)discovered?

I agree. I thought we were past that point of figuring out the structural parts. To me, the most interesting things are metabolic pathways, which are incredibly complex, photobiomodulation (effects of eg near infrared light), and electromagnetism (eg electrolyte channels can be triggered by em radiation). But knowledge about this lymph system in the brain could prove SO useful for so many disorders. If eg bodyweight…

Totally agree. Or potential blood-brain barrier busting channels to get things into and out of the brain..
Post reply on HN