Optimal Being

Summary:  A new study unveiled a crucial role of sleep: brainwaves facilitating the cleansing of the brain by flushing out waste. This discovery not only underscores the brain’s non-dormant state during sleep but also highlights a sophisticated system where neurons’ synchronized activity powers the flow of cerebrospinal fluid, effectively removing metabolic waste and potentially neurodegenerative disease-causing toxins. This insight opens up possibilities for enhancing brain cleaning processes to combat neurological diseases and improve sleep efficiency, hinting at a future where optimized sleep could lead to better health outcomes. Key Facts: Brainwaves Propel Cleansing Fluids : During sleep, neurons coordinate to produce rhythmic waves that drive the movement of fluid through the brain, washing away waste. Potential for Disease Prevention : Understanding and enhancing this cleansing process could delay or prevent diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s by ensuring the effective...

Injections of no-longer-used growth hormone derived from cadavers may have “seeded” Alzheimer’s in some people, small study suggests. Researchers say they have uncovered more evidence to support a controversial hypothesis that sticky proteins that are a signature of Alzheimer’s disease can be transmitted from person to person through certain surgical procedures. The authors and other scientists stress that the research is based on a small number of people and is related to medical practices that are no longer used. The study does not suggest that forms of dementia such as Alzheimer’s disease can be contagious. Still, “we’d like to take precautions going forward to reduce even those rare cases occurring”, says neurologist John Collinge at University College London who led the research, which was published in  Nature Medicine  on 29 January. For the past decade, Collinge and his team have studied people in the United Kingdom who, during childhood,  received growth hormone d...

Short Naps Have Major Benefits for Your Mind I have a confession: I nap. Most days, after lunch, you will find me snoozing. I used to keep quiet about it. Other countries have strong napping traditions, but here in the U.S. it is often equated with laziness. In 2019 a U.S. federal agency even announced a ban on sleeping in government buildings. I'm going public about my nap habit now because, despite what bureaucrats may think, sleep scientists are increasingly clear about the power of the nap. That shift is part of the relatively recent recognition that the quality and duration of sleep are public health issues, says physiologist Marta Garaulet of the University of Murcia in Spain. For a time, research was both for and against napping. Many studies showed mood and  cognition benefits  from midday rest, yet others found links to poor health, especially in older adults. That left some experts hesitant to “prescribe” naps. More recent research, though, has clarified that differe...

Participants who smelled odors while they slept performed better on word-recall tests. Smell is probably our most underappreciated sense. “If you ask people which sense they would be most willing to give up, it would be the olfactory system,” says Michael Leon, a neurobiologist at the University of California, Irvine. But a loss of smell has been linked to health complications such as  depression  and cognitive decline. And mounting evidence shows that olfactory training, which involves deliberately smelling strong scents on a regular basis, may help stave off that decline. Now a team of researchers led by Leon has successfully boosted cognitive performance by exposing people to smells while they sleep. Twenty participants—all older than 60 years and generally healthy—received six months of overnight olfactory enrichment, and all significantly improved their ability to recall lists of words compared with a control group. The study appeared in  Frontiers in Neuroscien...