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A good night’s sleep does not cleanse the brain of all its toxins as we have long thought. Another method would be more effective, announces a new British study.
Every day, our brain produces toxins (like all the organs in our body), which can ultimately play a role in dementia, for example, when they are poorly eliminated. But fortunately, the human body being well made, sleep should succeed in ridding the brain of accumulated waste. Except that this hypothesis that we have believed in for a long time would be distorted as demonstrated by scientists from the British Institute for Dementia Research at Imperial College London, in a new publication.
Sleep ultimately slows down the cleaning mission
To better understand the process of evacuating toxins, the scientists carried out an experiment on mice: using an injected fluorescent dye, they were able to observe the speed at which it moved in the different regions of the brain and measured the dye removal rate. New information emerged: the evacuation of the dye was reduced by approximately 30% in sleeping mice and by 50% in anesthetized rodents, compared to subjects kept awake. Sleep would not speed up evacuation.
“The field has focused so much on the idea of clearance [soit la capacité d’un organe à éliminer une substance, NDLR] as one of the main reasons we sleep, that we were very surprised to observe the opposite in our results. We found that the rate of dye removal from the brain was significantly reduced in animals that were asleep or under anesthesia.”said Professor Nick Franks, co-leader of the study.
However, more research is needed to understand why sleep slows this process.
At what time of day do we eliminate these toxins?
In this same study, scientists discovered something else: ultimately, the elimination of toxins present in the brain works very well during… The waking state and even more so during our periods of activity.
“In general, being awake, active, and exercising can help cleanse the brain of toxins more effectively.”, noted Professor Bill Wisden, co-director of the study. Getting enough sleep AND exercising during the day is therefore the key to a healthy brain.