A serious problem. Sleeping pills stop an important mechanism of cleaning the brain – scientists

Our bodies rely on the lymphatic system to drain excess fluid and remove waste from tissues. It is a complex but effective cleansing mechanism that works in all organs except the brain. Previous research, conducted mostly in mice, found that the brain has a system that flushes tissues with cerebrospinal fluid, which removes waste.

This process is called glymphatic cleansing. In a new study led by neuroscientist Natalie Hauglund of the University of Oxford, the team examined how it is affected by the use of sleeping pills. The work showed that glymphatic clearing is mediated by a hormone called norepinephrine and occurs almost exclusively during REM sleep. (peaceful sleep or NREM). But it only worked when the dream was natural. Anesthesia and sleeping pills almost completely stopped this process.

“When we looked at the mice after we gave them zolpidem, we saw that they all fell asleep very quickly. This was expected – we take zolpidem because it helps us sleep. But then we saw that these slow fluctuations in norepinephrine, blood volume, and cerebrospinal fluid almost completely stopped,” Hauglund says in a commentary to Ars Technica.

The absence of oscillations meant that the glymphatic system was not removing waste. This is a serious problem because one of the cellular waste products that should have been eliminated is the beta-amyloid found in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. Hauglund suggests that perhaps zolpidem induces a state very similar to sleep, but at the same time it stops important processes that occur during sleep.

Previous studies have shown that heavy use of zolpidem was associated with an increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. It is currently unclear whether this increased risk was due to the drug suppressing the oscillatory release of norepinephrine in the brain. To better understand this, Hauglund wants to further study how the glymphatic system works in the human body. The last step in her plan is to create better sleeping pills that do not affect the natural processes in the brain.