Q and A: about health and research

News Update: Brain’s waste-clearing ability impaired in ME/CFS patients https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1134732 For decades, neuroscientists understood the brain as an organ of electrical signaling, neurotransmitters, and vast neural networks. But one fundamental mystery lingered in the background: how does the brain clean itself? Unlike the rest of the body, the brain seemed strangely disconnected from the lymphatic system—the network responsible for clearing waste and toxins from tissues. For years, researchers largely assumed the brain simply handled waste removal in some diffuse, poorly understood way. Then, in 2012, a breakthrough changed the field. Danish-American neuroscientist Maiken Nedergaard and her colleagues at the University of Rochester identified what is now called the glymphatic system, a previously unknown cleaning mechanism that flushes toxic debris out of the brain. The discovery immediately transformed scientific understanding of sleep, neurodege...