![]() Wearing EEG caps to measure their brain waves, these initial 13 subjects were tasked with dozing off inside an extremely noisy MRI machine, which, as anyone who has had an MRI can imagine, is no easy feat. Lewis says they also hope to come up with a more sleep-conducive method of imaging CSF. To further explore how aging might affect sleep’s flow of blood and CSF in the brain, Lewis and her team plan to recruit older adults for their next study, as the 13 subjects in the current study were all between the ages of 23 and 33. was something we didn’t know happened at all, and now we can just glance at one brain region and immediately have a readout of the brain state someone’s in. Although researchers have tended to evaluate these processes separately, it now appears that they are very closely linked. In turn, this could affect the blood flow in the brain and reduce the pulsing of CSF during sleep, leading to a buildup of toxic proteins and a decline in memory abilities. As people age, their brains often generate fewer slow waves. Earlier studies have suggested that CSF flow and slow wave activity both help flush toxic, memory-impairing proteins from the brain. The coupling of brain waves with the flow of blood and CSF could provide insights about normal age-related impairments as well. And Lewis hopes that it will one day lead to insights about a variety of neurological and psychological disorders that are frequently associated with disrupted sleep patterns, including autism and Alzheimer’s disease. This research may also be the first-ever study to take images of CSF during sleep. “But before now, we didn’t realize that there are actually waves in the CSF, too.” ![]() “We’ve known for a while that there are these electrical waves of activity in the neurons,” says study coauthor Laura Lewis, a BU College of Engineering assistant professor of biomedical engineering and a Center for Systems Neuroscience faculty member. The study, published on October 31 in Science, is the first to illustrate that the brain’s CSF pulses during sleep, and that these motions are closely tied with brain wave activity and blood flow. ![]() Then, a watery liquid called cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) will flow in, washing through your brain in rhythmic, pulsing waves. A few seconds later, blood will flow out of your head. New research from Boston University suggests that tonight while you sleep, something amazing will happen within your brain. ![]()
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