The Nightlife of the Brain

Maiken Nedergaard is Professor of Glial Cell Biology at the Center for Neuroscience at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark and Dean’s Professor and Co-Director of the Center for Translational Neuromedicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, NY. Her multiple interests range from basic research on neuron-glia interactions to their role in aging, small vessel disease, seizure disorders and cerebral blood flow. Forefront amongst her discovery is the identification of the glymphatic system, a brain equivalent of the lymphatic system within which cerebrospinal fluid diffuses rapidly and mixes with interstitial fluids, thereby filtering metabolic byproducts that accumulate due to neuronal activity. The glymphatic system dramatically expands during sleep compared to waking - brain cleaning and detoxification is thus greatly facilitated during sleep, providing a novel and direct explanation for what we all generally consider sleep’s restorative effect.