10 ms·

Attention lapses due to sleep deprivation due to flushing fluid from brain

619 points by gmays 1y ago

rtaylorgarlock 1y ago
Long live healthy sleep for brain health, and thank goodness light exercise helps this same glymphatic system.
- cestith 1y ago
  ISTR that light exercise also helps with quality of sleep.
  - HPsquared 1y ago
    It stands to reason.
    - stOneskull 1y ago
      It lays to drain.
cdelsolar 1y ago
I slept around 5 hours last night split up into two periods because my baby daughter woke up crying from fever and wanted to play / was hallucinating / etc. She's totally fine now but I am wondering if there is a correlation between dementia and having kids.
- aethrum 1y ago
  Probably negatively correlated cause you have someone to interact with in your old age/better chance of community :)
  - skeeter2020 1y ago
    Also I think of (hopefully at least one of) my three kids as a diversed retirement portfolio :)
- arethuza 1y ago
  I remember this quote from when we had young kids: "Insanity is hereditary. You can get it from your children." And then as soon as they are in their 20s and reasonably self sufficient we had to get a puppy to keep me sane!
  - spockz 1y ago
    Long days and short years. Did you have empty nest syndrome?
    - arethuza 1y ago
      More like empty head syndrome - but getting a dog was the best thing I've done in years.
- sarchertech 1y ago
  I’m on my 3rd (she’s 1 week old today) at 42. With the first 2 it was only terrible for the first couple months. Once I just got used to going to sleep at 9:30 I was mostly fine.
  - micromacrofoot 1y ago
    Yeah that's the trick, sleep asap
  - grumpy-de-sre 1y ago
    We're expecting our first in a few months. NGL I'm low key wondering if my messed up natural rhythm of 9pm-4am is going to be potentially handy.
    - zurichisstained 1y ago
      I have a similar natural rhythm, or I should say "had". For the first year, especially the first few months, it was a godsend (for my wife, especially), but now that we're in a fairly consistent sleep routine with our two year old (~8pm-7am), I've shifted to something more like 8pm-1am out of necessity. Although... I was up until 4am and got up at 6:30am and feel surprisingly great, so it still happens from time to time. :)
    - Tade0 1y ago
      As a father of two I would say "nope", primarily because you won't be deciding the rhythm. Best you can do is coordinate sleep with your partner so that there's at least one somewhat functioning parent at all times. As I'm typing this my 1.5yo is napping. I had maybe 6h of sleep but I'm after (part time) work and at home already, so I should probably nap as well. Can't. My adult body won't go to sleep right now even though I'm feeling drowsy because it's too bright, too loud and chiefly I already had too much caffeine in the morning and I have like 15 minutes until I'll have to head out to collect my older child from preschool. My SO is knocked out cold at the moment though, so I'll be relying on her this evening.
- debo_ 1y ago
  This kind of fear is a quick route to insomnia. One of the most effective ways to reduce sleep is to worry about it.
  - grumpy-de-sre 1y ago
    And when that happens, of course HN has the answer https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15997016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15997016
    - debo_ 1y ago
      I think CBTI is pretty horrible but I'm happy it works for some people. There's so much helpful stuff out there now it's rather a blessing.
- Mizza 1y ago
  Memory loss from sleep deprivation is an evolutionary advantage. If you remembered how rough the first few months of new children are, you wouldn't do it again.
- zoeysmithe 1y ago
  I mean the baby stage doesn't last very long. I dont even remember the sleepless nights from my own kids anymore lol Chronic sleep deprivation is the larger issue. And how we really don't have treatments on how to fix that, and how ultimately sleep phase issues are a social issues (being forced to follow a fixed modern schedule). Not to mention how closely that's tied to ND people. So a lot of us deal with sleep issues since we were little, but work and school dont give us the flexibility we need. For example, flex hours could be helpful here. I would rather work 10am to 6pm or 11am to 7pm most days. Or 5-6 hours during the day and 2-3 hours late at night.
  - chasebank 1y ago
    "Chronic sleep deprivation is the larger issue. And how we really don't have treatments on how to fix that" Sure we do, however, not everyone is willing to hike 20-30 miles a day and sleep in a tent. It's not practical but it is very effective.
    - zoeysmithe 1y ago
      Physically exhausting yourself isnt a solution. Its tangential to the real issue. Its a bit like suggesting you can solve anxiety caused by trauma by drinking large amounts of alcohol everyday. No, instead we should be treating trauma. Its like putting autistic kids through rough ABA therapy, no instead we should finding accommodations and support for autistic people. People have natural sleep rhythms. Society should conform to that, instead capitalism demands we conform to what it deems profit maximizing.
      - chasebank 1y ago
        Not physically exhausting yourself is the real issue. It's our natural state as humans. We're not meant to be staring at screens having discussions about chronic sleep deprivation on an internet forum, we're meant to be outside moving our bodies.
      - sureglymop 1y ago
        I agree with you. I regularly have strong insomnia and I have tried physical exhaustion. It usually works for the first few days of doing it but then it's like my body (probably moreso my mind) gets used to it and it doesn't help with sleep anymore. Arguably it feels even more unhealthy because it's like my body is fully exhausted and tired but my mind won't let me sleep so no restoration can happen.
- aliljet 1y ago
  What have you done when your toddler wakes up at random hours during the night to interrupt your sleep and come and play? That's what has truly obliterated our sleep. Everything else was a passing fad that was minimally painful at best..
- freedomben 1y ago
  Ah, those days were the absolute grinder for me. How a precious and sweet little baby girl can become an absolute monster all night long, and then wake up the next day back to her normal self while leaving me a hollowed out mess of a human is a mystery for science to solve someday.
  - cdelsolar 1y ago
    aren't they the best though? but yeah, back to the grind, and now i also have her respiratory disease and am trying to launch my startup off the ground ...
ferguess_k 1y ago
I wonder if a 30-min nap improves the situation. But I need to tell the brain to hold the flushing until the nap.
- rtaylorgarlock 1y ago
  There's controversy over exact mechanisms involved in glymphatic function, so suffice it to say that allegedly even just NSDR / yoga nidra will engage a rest deep enough for glymphatic function to engage/improve
  - DenisM 1y ago
    I was disappointed the article didn’t mention that. Can you give me some pointers. I will use Google but HN curated content is often a better starting point. :)
- JKCalhoun 1y ago
  Anecdotally, it seems to. I have laid down and closed my eyes even for a short while. And believe that I have even had a "flushing" sensation, that feels like a mental fog being lifted (or "drained", I guess). I pop up 5 minutes later and feel completely refreshed.
  - nullstyle 1y ago
    Fwiw, i have the opposite experience of napping. Napping adds to mental fog for me especially for the hour immediately after napping. Its not until several hours later that i actually experience any loss of mental fog or increase in clarity.
    - g-b-r 1y ago
      It probably depends on how much sleep you're lacking, and how long the nap is. My experience after sleeplessness nights is that even few seconds help significantly, especially when you're almost unable to function anymore. If the nap lasts longer than 30 minutes, though, you have a good chance of feeling groggy afterwards.
jongjong 1y ago
Good to know that the brain finds a way to flush itself while awake. I think I've become pretty good at putting unused parts of my brain to sleep while awake. My brain is like that of a dolphin now. But on rare occasions (like a couple of times a year), I get migraine auras and stuff disappears from my field of view. Can last about an hour. I feel like that's my visual cortex falling asleep.
paglaghoda 1y ago
Rest in peace to all the college dudes covering the whole syllabus within 24 hours of the exam
- wslh 1y ago
  It is always great to follow the instructions from a psychiatrist [1]. [1] https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2007/08/how_to_take_ritalin_correctly.html https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2007/08/how_to_take_ritalin_...
  - plmpsu 1y ago
    I miss her.
    - MarcelOlsz 1y ago
      What happened? Did they pass or something or just stop posting or what?
      - _--__--__ 1y ago
        TLP was doxxed in a way that threatened their real life psychiatry practice, briefly blogged on Tumblr under a different psuedonym, and has since had little online presence other than rare tweets and randomly dropping a self-published book on Amazon (_Sadly, Porn_ by 'Edward Teach').
  - mctt 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - johnisgood 1y ago
      There is much more to it. There is such a thing as state-dependent memory or context-dependent memory: recall is better when the environmental context (e.g. location, lighting, smells) matches the context of learning. If you study while on Adderall, which alters your neurochemical state (increasing dopamine and norepinephrine activity), you may recall that material more effectively when you are in the same neurochemical state, that is, also on Adderall. Similarly, if someone learns something while sober, they will generally recall it better when sober again, rather than under the influence of a drug. It is the phenomenon where memory recall is improved when the internal physiological or psychological state matches that during learning.
kurisufag 1y ago
anecdotally, i never feel better than when i haven't slept. spent 8pm tuesday -- 8pm thursday this week awake nursing cheap energy drinks, and not only could i manage a higher-than-usual level of focus, i was genuinely content. bombed a midterm halfway though, but at least i felt good about it.
- barrenko 1y ago
  Well, not sleeping through the night, you'll feel genuinely euphoric around dawn, it's one of the most immediate "cures" for clinical depression.
- jcims 1y ago
  I've got pretty bad ADHD and I find that my mind is more quiet, focused and productive on mornings after a night of 2-4 hrs of sleep than it has ever been on meds or anything else. It all falls apart by the afternoon, but for a while it's a nice feeling.
- 90ne1 1y ago
  I see the same thing in myself. I've attributed it to a my brain moving to power-saving mode and muting some of my anxiety / perfectionism tendencies. Does this explanation resonate with you at all?
  - kurisufag 1y ago
    That's possible. It feels a lot like the placebo component in drinking: if you're free to ignore one of the few things you need to /live/, it should be much easier psychologically to be carefree (similar to "oh, haha, i'm drunk, might as well get wacky").
- puzzlingcaptcha 1y ago
  It's not unusual to feel good after pulling an all-nighter. Sleep is when re-uptake of serotonin takes place, so if you interrupt it you end up with a surplus. Although there are also other possible explanations [1] 1. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2214505120 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2214505120
cyberdrunk2 1y ago
I wonder if this could help explain why creatine helps mitigate the effects of sleep deprivation. Since creatine aids in water retention. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16416332/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16416332/
- layer8 1y ago
  It’s not clear how water retention would help with the needed flushing.
  - regularfry 1y ago
    Hypothetically, more water retention would mean that the fluid being flushed is less concentrated, and if the flushing mechanism is triggered by a certain concentration level then it'll happen less frequently. Hard to imagine that it would be worth more than a few percent though.
    - layer8 1y ago
      Less flushing sounds like it would also worsen the sleep deprivation, even if it reduces the momentary lapses.
- jorvi 1y ago
  Mix your cheap instant coffee with creatine powder and ORS for that ultimate early morning flavor bomb!
  - zer00eyz 1y ago
    The mechanism of creatine isn't that straight forward. You need to take it for a while for it to build up, and for water to accumulate in cells. It would also be disgusting in a cup of coffee!
  - pawelduda 1y ago
    Don't forget to intensely shake your head after consumption for a proper brain flush
earless1 1y ago
So biological garbage collection pauses then? skip sleep, and the brain tries to run gc cycles during runtime. Causing attention and performance latency spikes. Evolution wrote the original JVM.
- layer8 1y ago
  Luckily it doesn’t clear all unreferenced memory, though.
  - DenisM 1y ago
    Cleanup is an LRU process. Once a memory lapses you have to relearn from life experience (or not at all).
    - thaumasiotes 1y ago
      No, a lapsed memory can be provoked. It doesn't have to be relearned. It is "lapsed" because the organizational path to it within your brain has been lost, like a book in a library that has been left out of the card catalog, but just like the book, if you happen to find it anyway, it will be there. Compare, from https://evolutionistx.wordpress.com/2016/12/16/anthropology-friday-the-life-and-adventures-of-william-buckley-pt-33/ https://evolutionistx.wordpress.com/2016/12/16/anthropology-... : > at the first news of English ships in the area, Buckley rushed to the spot. He attempted to make contact, but couldn’t swim out to the ship and couldn’t convince the ship to send a boat to him (Buckley had, at this point, forgotten how to speak English.) Buckley was again heartbroken until another ship showed up, and he found the English colonists and tried to approach them: > “Presently some of the natives saw me, and turning round, pointed me out to one of the white people; and seeing they had done so, I walked away from the well, up to their place, and seated myself there, having my spears and other war and hunting implements between my legs. The white men could not make me out–my half-cast colour, and extraordinary height and figure [Buckley was around 6’5” or taller,]–dressed, or rather undressed, as I was–completely confounding them as to my real character. At length one of them came up and asked me some questions, which I could not understand; but when he offered me bread–calling it by its name–a cloud appeared to pass from over my brain, and I soon repeated that, and other English words after him. … > “Word by word I began to comprehend what they said, and soon understood, as if by instinct, that they intended to remain in the country; that they had seen several of the native chiefs, with whom–as they said–they had exchanged all sorts of things for land; but that I knew could not have been I submit that it takes more than a day to learn English if you don't already know it. Once I was in a Toys-R-Us and noticed a cover image among the bottom-of-the-barrel DVD display which caused me to put what I was doing on hold for several minutes while I stared at the DVD. I bought it, and it turned out to be a movie I had watched many times when I was very young, but that information hadn't been accessible to me.
shahbaby 1y ago
> For example, what you don't want to do is NOT take amphetamines at testing if you had used them to study; Hard disagree there. If you get any anxiety during the test it's better to take it only while studying.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- lazide 1y ago
  Huh? Care to explain?
- 85392_school 1y ago
  Did you mean to reply to <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45772306 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45772306>?
thimkerbell 1y ago
[This is one of those article titles that would really benefit from adding one more word.]
- cvoss 1y ago
  Or some parentheses. Is "due to" naturally left-associative or right-associative? I would have said 'right', which gives the unintended reading of the sentence. Attention lapses due to (sleep deprivation due to flushing fluid from brain). (Attention lapses due to sleep deprivation) due to flushing fluid from brain.
epsilonic 1y ago
Exogenous ketones (such as BHB salts) are known to help with glymphatic drainage in the brain during sleep. I've used them extensively and have noticed improved sleep with nearly a doubling of the time spent in REM stage.
- smith7018 1y ago
  Could you go into detail what you take, how much, and when? I could always use a little boost for my sleep!
  - epsilonic 1y ago
    Sure. When I have a night of poor sleep or anticipate one, I usually take 6 grams of BHB salts in the morning on an empty stomach. You can work your way up to a maximum of 12 grams, but I would advise caution since it can cause diarrhea. I would start by buying the cheapest product (nutricost) you can find online; if it costs more than $80 for ~300g, then you're probably getting ripped off. I noticed that I have very lucid dreams and experience strong hypnagogic jerks when I take this supplement. Here is some literature that I've perused to support my experimentation with BHB salts: 1. β-hydroxybutyrate is a metabolic regulator of proteostasis in the aged and Alzheimer disease brain (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2451945624004598 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S245194562...) 2. Refueling the post COVID-19 brain: potential role of ketogenic medium chain triglyceride supplementation: an hypothesis (https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3389/fnut.2023.1126534/full https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3...) My motivation for pursuing this was protracted sleep disturbance from long-covid.
0xbadcafebee 1y ago
So... can we trigger it manually? I'd love to be able to lay down and press the 'flush brain' button.
- vrx-meta 1y ago
  Research on NDSR, I have been using this for days I had to wake up without proper rest. If you have 15m, search this on YT for a guided practice and test it yourself.
  - BobaFloutist 1y ago
    I believe you were referring to NSDR (Non-Sleep Deep Rest)?
    - Muromec 1y ago
      Mixing up acronyms is on brand with sleep deprivation.
    - vrx-meta 1y ago
      Yes, thanks for the correction. I need to get some real sleep.
  - GavinMcG 1y ago
    NSDR, rather—Non-Sleep Deep Rest.
  - niwtsol 1y ago
    Kind of related, but there is a concept of polyphasic sleep - where you sleep for small increments throughout the day (like 30 minutes every 3 hours). I did it for a bit at a startup thinking we were "hacking sleep" and "getting more productive hours out of every day!" - It takes awhile to transition to it, but once there, your scheduled "sleeps" are insane, 15 minutes, feel like straight to REM. The main problem was if you missed on schedule sleep you were a zombie.
    - 1y ago
bzmrgonz 1y ago
hmm.. this is interesting... the article says "spinal fluid exits the cerebrospinal fluid (csf) flows out of the brain... I wonder where it discharges these waste products. I ask because it is believed we have a sort of chimney on our backs. I think I read this on the article of the Irish lady who could detect alzheimers years before any modern medical detection systems. But maybe it is discharged in the gut? via the mesentery, the new organ they finally named fo rthe stuff that holds our intestines together. If anyone knows where it is discharged, please comment, I'm interested in this, because I do prolong waterfasts every 3 months, and I strongly believe the brain drains waste into my mouth during that time, because the taste in my mouth is godawful, but if there are other exit points the brain discharges waste, we probably need to know about them.
- kingkawn 1y ago
  The description of the mesentery as a single organ dates to the time of Da Vinci, at the latest.
- canadiantim 1y ago
  I believe it's discharged basically half directly into the venous system in the neck, the other half goes through the lymphatic/glymphatic system and ultimately also the venous system in the neck. That being said, that's just based on our very crude understandings and I'm sure there are other pathways.
- jp57 1y ago
  Why do you think that the taste in your mouth is waste draining from your brain and not the result of some metabolic changes in your body from the fast? Ketosis is known to cause a metallic taste in the mouth, for example.
- alfonsodev 1y ago
  What I understood from youtube gurus, take it with a grain of salt, is that your brain is taking ketones as source of energy to preserve the little glucose that goes into the system, and as result it consumes less oxygen. But I'm not sure the mouth taste comes from the brain's waste. To some degree, if you had your brain inflamed by bad eating habits, fasting would revert that and make the flushing more efficient as well. Again please take with with double grain of salt, since I don't even know inflame brain is a thing for sure, or the correct term.
pstuart 1y ago
My pet theory is that dreams are the brain booting up/shutting down and the equivalent of old analog TVs that have the flash of static and bloom/collapse on the screen when turning off/on.
gwbas1c 1y ago
Sometimes when I get a really bad migraine and poor sleep together, I can literally feel a flushing feeling in my head once I can fall asleep.
cozzyd 1y ago
As a chronic undersleeper, good thing I don't drive!
- fsckboy 1y ago
  isn't chronic undersleep associated with dementia in old age? meaning, whatever you have to do, stop doing that.
codethief 1y ago
> The scientists found that during these lapses, a wave of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) flows out of the brain > Lewis and colleagues showed that CSF flow during sleep follows a rhythmic pattern in and out of the brain > Most significantly, they found a flux of CSF out of the brain just as those lapses occurred. After each lapse, CSF flowed back into the brain. I can't believe the authors of the article didn't address one of the most obvious questions: Where does the CSF flow to and where does it flow back from? It's not like there are pipes leading out of the brain, or the CSF will just leave my brain through my ears or anything, will it?¹ What happens with the waste products? (¹ Though it would be kinda funny if this was where snot comes from.) EDIT: Wikipedia's got the answer: > Clearing waste: CSF allows for the removal of waste products from the brain,[3] and is critical in the brain's lymphatic system, called the glymphatic system. Metabolic waste products diffuse rapidly into CSF and are removed into the bloodstream as CSF is absorbed. When this goes awry, CSF can become toxic […] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebrospinal_fluid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebrospinal_fluid
- svnt 1y ago
  They didn’t put it in there because knowing the flow of CSF is so elemental to performing research in the field that it would be a waste of everyone’s time.
  - codethief 1y ago
    This is a pop sci article, though?
- dragonwriter 1y ago
  > It's not like there are pipes leading out of the brain There are, in fact, “pipes” leading out of the brain. Cerebrospinal fluid is (and this is probably somewhat oversimplified) produced from material in the bloodstream in the ventricles in the brain, flows through the system of ventricles and then out of the brain into the subarachnoid space around the brain and spinal cord, and is then reabsorbed into the bloodstream.
  - 1y ago
rickcarlino 1y ago
Could this be why SNRIs help some patients mitigate ADHD symptoms?
JumpCrisscross 1y ago
Could ADHD be caused by a broken flushing response? Lots of flushing followed by intense focus caused by the tabula rasa?
- delecti 1y ago
  I'm not an expert, but that wouldn't really fit with my understanding of ADHD. It's not that we have a lack of attention ("defecit" of attention, as the name suggests), it's an impaired ability to direct it. To abuse a metaphor, the sleep-deprivation-induced spontaneous CSF flush is slamming on the brakes of a car, and ADHD related attention shifts would be more like a drunk toddler is turning the steering wheel wherever they please, but the gas/brakes still work fine.
- luciferin 1y ago
  I suppose it's possible, but it seems less likely to me because ADHD is a life long neurodevelopmental disorder that shows [visible physical changes in the brain on scans](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7879851/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7879851/). That said, there are statistically more people with narcolepsy who have ADHD, and the same goes for sleep apnea. There's a number of hypotheses I've read as to why, to name a couple: related epigenetic causes, or [possible misdiagnosis](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7336577/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7336577/) (narcolepsy is much harder to diagnose than ADHD if you don't have textbook symptoms). So there is definitely something there.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- Citizen8396 1y ago
  Disordered sleep can cause executive dysfunction similar to ADHD, but it does not cause ADHD. It certainly can exacerbate it or be diagnosed incorrectly.
- Geee 1y ago
  Not sure if it's related, but I have way more ADHD-like symptoms if I'm on late sleep schedule, but sleeping the same amount of hours.
HEmanZ 1y ago
I hope that the actual medical field starts taking note of this. My wife still has to work 24 hour shifts with no sleep, performing emergency surgeries no matter how long it has been since she slept. During residency only a few years ago she and her co-residents were almost weekly required to do 36 hour shifts (on top of their regular 16 hours per day, 5 day per week schedule) and once even a 48 hour shift when the hospital was short staffed. Of course I’m sure they won’t. No one cares if doctors are over worked.
- lordnacho 1y ago
  I've never understood those long shifts. Unless a shift just means you are there but sleeping, what is the reason for allowing it? We don't let truck drivers do 24h shifts, why do doctors the world over seem to do this?
  - munificent 1y ago
    My understanding is that the research shows that the harm to patient care from information loss during doctor shift turnover is worse than the harm from fatigued doctors. Yes, a tired doctor sucks. But a tired doctor who already has the patient's state loaded into their head may still be better than doctor who is completely fresh in both senses. It's a hard problem.
    - harperlee 1y ago
      That only works if the mean stay in the hospital (or at least the critical care period) is several hours but also way below 24h…
      - Timon3 1y ago
        Longer shifts mean fewer shift turnovers for any patients that stay a sufficient amount of time, especially if longer than 24h. The world doesn't run on boolean logic. A solution can improve an issue without solving it completely.
    - 1y ago
kurtis_reed 1y ago
Title sucks
Olshansky 1y ago
Need a cron job to flush that cache
shomp 1y ago
In high school a friend of mine told me about "microsleep" and how your brain will oscillate into it if you're under-rested. This would align with that theory.
SilentM68 1y ago
That is very interesting. I have a somewhat related issue with sleep cycles. This issue, waking around 3:00am every morning then not going back to sleep until 6 or 7am, is not really a productive sleep cycle. I read somewhere that taking a spoon of sugary substance, like Raw Honey, MCT or Collagen, before going to bed can replenish the brain of this energy, so it becomes easier to fall asleep. I've been trying it with two to three spoons of honey, right before hitting the sack to see if it can help me fall asleep again. It seems to be having a somewhat positive effect as it does not take me too long to go back to sleep.
- rsync 1y ago
  Extremely fine optimizations - like you are describing - only make sense after the major, gross actions have already been exhausted. Do you have a regular, intensive, exercise routine with a good mix of aerobic and resistance training? Don’t buy the fancy high flow air filter if you’re not even doing oil changes…
binary132 1y ago
What I’m picking up here is that if I can just get an automated CSF circulator installed I won’t need to sleep or get distracted when I’m tired. That was the point of this article, right?
boogieknite 1y ago
should have given them a cup of joe while in the fmri to see what difference that made
gcanyon 1y ago
What I want to know is: can we trigger these flushes? My grandfather died of/with Alzheimer’s, and I’d prefer not to follow in his footsteps. If we determine that these flushes are key to good brain health, and there were a way either through a pill or even a treatment to up the frequency of these flushes, that would be awesome.
- HPsquared 1y ago
  Choosing to sleep more, I guess.
- pedalpete 1y ago
  We can't "trigger" the flushes, however, it looks like we can increase the power of the pump. This is specifically the area we work in traditionally called slow-wave enhancement which is stimulating the restorative function of sleep. This paper [1] specifically looks at amyloid response as a result of stimulation and shows a corresponding relationship between stimulation response, amyloid response, and memory. I wouldn't say it's putting a bow on the results, but it is a very promising result. If you're curious about what we're building, I'll be posting a ShowHN next week which dives into some of the data in a way regulatory requirements don't permit us to do on our website, but until then, check out https://affectablesleep.com https://affectablesleep.com [1] https://doi.org/10.1093/ageing/afad228 https://doi.org/10.1093/ageing/afad228
  - hammock 1y ago
    > We can't "trigger" the flushes How do you know that?
    - pedalpete 1y ago
      I work in neurotech/sleeptech and this is the primary function our work focuses on. However, I also mis-stated that. It is possible to create a slow-wave, however only through magnetic stimulation (rTMS), but that is not realistic outside of a hospital environment.
assimpleaspossi 1y ago
Maybe unrelated but, years ago, I had a job that had me criss-crossing the country by plane Monday through Friday and sometimes Saturday. So my sleep and the time zones and hotels could sometimes mess with me. One day, I went to a grocery store and mid-turn onto another street, I forgot what city I was in. Worse, I was half a mile from my apartment in my home town.
- hollerith 1y ago
  How long did it take you to orient or to get home (whichever one happened first)?
  - assimpleaspossi 1y ago
    It was very brief. Only a few seconds
handfuloflight 1y ago
I can feel when this fluid hasn't properly flushed.
heywoods 1y ago
This reminds me of delirium tremens a bit. Same compensatory mechanism, different sleep process - or at least that's the pattern I'm seeing. The MIT study shows CSF waves—normally a sleep-only process that flushes metabolic waste—intruding into wakefulness when you're sleep-deprived. Your brain is apparently so desperate for the cleanup that it forces the process to happen anyway. Cost: attention lapses. From what I've read, delirium tremens during alcohol withdrawal seems to follow a similar pattern, except it's REM sleep intruding into waking consciousness instead of CSF flushing. [Polysomnographic studies from the 1960s-80s](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7318677/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7318677/) documented this. Patients in alcohol withdrawal exhibit what researchers call ["Stage 1-REM"](https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/delirium-tremens https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/delirium-t...)—a hybrid state where wakefulness and REM sleep characteristics get mixed together. Right before full-blown DTs, [some patients hit 100% Stage 1-REM](https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4757-0632-1_36 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4757-0632-1_...). The hallucinations appear to be [literally enacted dreams](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165178117314440 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01651...) occurring while technically awake. The sleep-wake boundary just completely breaks down. What strikes me is the system-level similarity here. Sleep normally maintains clean states: you're either awake (alert, reality-testing intact, no CSF flushing) or asleep (offline, dreams permitted, maintenance running). But when the system gets stressed enough—whether through sleep deprivation or the neurochemical chaos of alcohol withdrawal—it seems to start making desperate tradeoffs. The brain apparently needs certain processes to run. Period. Total no-brainer! CSF flushing can't wait indefinitely. Neither can REM sleep, which serves its own critical functions. So when normal sleep architecture fails, the system appears to force these processes anyway, even though the conditions are completely wrong for them. Maybe that's why the costs are so specific. CSF intrusion during wakefulness costs you attention. REM intrusion costs you reality testing, because REM is the state where your brain accepts impossible narratives without question. Same compensatory mechanism, different critical process forced into the wrong state. What I find interesting is how the brain knows what lever it needs to pull and how it pulls it. Sleep deprivation forces waste removal. REM deprivation forces wakeful dream states; which might be a side effect not the actual goal. The brain seems to know what maintenance is overdue and attempts the repair, consequences be damned.
hyperjeff 1y ago
Back when I used to meditate regularly, I would find that an extra meditation in the middle of a sleepless night would go a long way toward pushing off the need for sleep. Generally, meditating always left me in a slightly heightened awake state. Perhaps the help with brain fluid regulation is a core reason for both effects. (I should go back to meditating again.)
pedalpete 1y ago
This is fascinating, and somewhat directly related to the work we do increasing slow-wave response during sleep. For those who are not aware, slow-wave are the hallmark of deep sleep and closely linked to the flushing the glymphatic system, which is what they are referring to in this article. We can't create slow-waves, but we can increase their effectiveness through precisely timed auditory stimulation. I'll be posting a Show HN next week which dives into the data of how this works, but if you want to know more, there is info on our website and links to over 50 published peer-reviewed papers. https://affectablesleep.com https://affectablesleep.com This paper specifically looks at amyloid clearance as a result of this glymphatic flush https://doi.org/10.1093/ageing/afad228 https://doi.org/10.1093/ageing/afad228 While many people will point to "getting more sleep" that isn't really the answer. More time asleep does not automatically mean increased glymphatic flush. Additionally, as we age, the power of the pump gets weaker, and more sleep does not help with that. We believe the focus on counting minutes of sleep misses the point of what makes sleep truly restorative and beneficial, which are the neurological processes, and downstream physiological changes as a result. This is why we talk about restorative function, and that should be the focus of sleep health, not time. After all, you wouldn't measure your diet based on how much time you spend chewing, would you?
tim333 1y ago
Wikipedia has a nice moving MRI of the flushing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebrospinal_fluid#Circulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebrospinal_fluid#Circulatio...
attisday 1y ago
Sleep is indeed important

619 points by gmays 1y ago

rtaylorgarlock 1y ago

Long live healthy sleep for brain health, and thank goodness light exercise helps this same glymphatic system.

cestith 1y ago
ISTR that light exercise also helps with quality of sleep.
- HPsquared 1y ago
  It stands to reason.
  - stOneskull 1y ago
    It lays to drain.

cdelsolar 1y ago

I slept around 5 hours last night split up into two periods because my baby daughter woke up crying from fever and wanted to play / was hallucinating / etc. She's totally fine now but I am wondering if there is a correlation between dementia and having kids.

aethrum 1y ago
Probably negatively correlated cause you have someone to interact with in your old age/better chance of community :)
- skeeter2020 1y ago
  Also I think of (hopefully at least one of) my three kids as a diversed retirement portfolio :)
arethuza 1y ago
I remember this quote from when we had young kids: "Insanity is hereditary. You can get it from your children." And then as soon as they are in their 20s and reasonably self sufficient we had to get a puppy to keep me sane!
- spockz 1y ago
  Long days and short years. Did you have empty nest syndrome?
  - arethuza 1y ago
    More like empty head syndrome - but getting a dog was the best thing I've done in years.
sarchertech 1y ago
I’m on my 3rd (she’s 1 week old today) at 42. With the first 2 it was only terrible for the first couple months. Once I just got used to going to sleep at 9:30 I was mostly fine.
- micromacrofoot 1y ago
  Yeah that's the trick, sleep asap
- grumpy-de-sre 1y ago
  We're expecting our first in a few months. NGL I'm low key wondering if my messed up natural rhythm of 9pm-4am is going to be potentially handy.
  - zurichisstained 1y ago
    I have a similar natural rhythm, or I should say "had". For the first year, especially the first few months, it was a godsend (for my wife, especially), but now that we're in a fairly consistent sleep routine with our two year old (~8pm-7am), I've shifted to something more like 8pm-1am out of necessity. Although... I was up until 4am and got up at 6:30am and feel surprisingly great, so it still happens from time to time. :)
  - Tade0 1y ago
    As a father of two I would say "nope", primarily because you won't be deciding the rhythm. Best you can do is coordinate sleep with your partner so that there's at least one somewhat functioning parent at all times. As I'm typing this my 1.5yo is napping. I had maybe 6h of sleep but I'm after (part time) work and at home already, so I should probably nap as well. Can't. My adult body won't go to sleep right now even though I'm feeling drowsy because it's too bright, too loud and chiefly I already had too much caffeine in the morning and I have like 15 minutes until I'll have to head out to collect my older child from preschool. My SO is knocked out cold at the moment though, so I'll be relying on her this evening.
debo_ 1y ago
This kind of fear is a quick route to insomnia. One of the most effective ways to reduce sleep is to worry about it.
- grumpy-de-sre 1y ago
  And when that happens, of course HN has the answer https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15997016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15997016
  - debo_ 1y ago
    I think CBTI is pretty horrible but I'm happy it works for some people. There's so much helpful stuff out there now it's rather a blessing.
Mizza 1y ago
Memory loss from sleep deprivation is an evolutionary advantage. If you remembered how rough the first few months of new children are, you wouldn't do it again.
zoeysmithe 1y ago
I mean the baby stage doesn't last very long. I dont even remember the sleepless nights from my own kids anymore lol Chronic sleep deprivation is the larger issue. And how we really don't have treatments on how to fix that, and how ultimately sleep phase issues are a social issues (being forced to follow a fixed modern schedule). Not to mention how closely that's tied to ND people. So a lot of us deal with sleep issues since we were little, but work and school dont give us the flexibility we need. For example, flex hours could be helpful here. I would rather work 10am to 6pm or 11am to 7pm most days. Or 5-6 hours during the day and 2-3 hours late at night.
- chasebank 1y ago
  "Chronic sleep deprivation is the larger issue. And how we really don't have treatments on how to fix that" Sure we do, however, not everyone is willing to hike 20-30 miles a day and sleep in a tent. It's not practical but it is very effective.
  - zoeysmithe 1y ago
    Physically exhausting yourself isnt a solution. Its tangential to the real issue. Its a bit like suggesting you can solve anxiety caused by trauma by drinking large amounts of alcohol everyday. No, instead we should be treating trauma. Its like putting autistic kids through rough ABA therapy, no instead we should finding accommodations and support for autistic people. People have natural sleep rhythms. Society should conform to that, instead capitalism demands we conform to what it deems profit maximizing.
    - chasebank 1y ago
      Not physically exhausting yourself is the real issue. It's our natural state as humans. We're not meant to be staring at screens having discussions about chronic sleep deprivation on an internet forum, we're meant to be outside moving our bodies.
    - sureglymop 1y ago
      I agree with you. I regularly have strong insomnia and I have tried physical exhaustion. It usually works for the first few days of doing it but then it's like my body (probably moreso my mind) gets used to it and it doesn't help with sleep anymore. Arguably it feels even more unhealthy because it's like my body is fully exhausted and tired but my mind won't let me sleep so no restoration can happen.
aliljet 1y ago
What have you done when your toddler wakes up at random hours during the night to interrupt your sleep and come and play? That's what has truly obliterated our sleep. Everything else was a passing fad that was minimally painful at best..
freedomben 1y ago
Ah, those days were the absolute grinder for me. How a precious and sweet little baby girl can become an absolute monster all night long, and then wake up the next day back to her normal self while leaving me a hollowed out mess of a human is a mystery for science to solve someday.
- cdelsolar 1y ago
  aren't they the best though? but yeah, back to the grind, and now i also have her respiratory disease and am trying to launch my startup off the ground ...

ferguess_k 1y ago

I wonder if a 30-min nap improves the situation. But I need to tell the brain to hold the flushing until the nap.

rtaylorgarlock 1y ago
There's controversy over exact mechanisms involved in glymphatic function, so suffice it to say that allegedly even just NSDR / yoga nidra will engage a rest deep enough for glymphatic function to engage/improve
- DenisM 1y ago
  I was disappointed the article didn’t mention that. Can you give me some pointers. I will use Google but HN curated content is often a better starting point. :)
JKCalhoun 1y ago
Anecdotally, it seems to. I have laid down and closed my eyes even for a short while. And believe that I have even had a "flushing" sensation, that feels like a mental fog being lifted (or "drained", I guess). I pop up 5 minutes later and feel completely refreshed.
- nullstyle 1y ago
  Fwiw, i have the opposite experience of napping. Napping adds to mental fog for me especially for the hour immediately after napping. Its not until several hours later that i actually experience any loss of mental fog or increase in clarity.
  - g-b-r 1y ago
    It probably depends on how much sleep you're lacking, and how long the nap is. My experience after sleeplessness nights is that even few seconds help significantly, especially when you're almost unable to function anymore. If the nap lasts longer than 30 minutes, though, you have a good chance of feeling groggy afterwards.

jongjong 1y ago

Good to know that the brain finds a way to flush itself while awake. I think I've become pretty good at putting unused parts of my brain to sleep while awake. My brain is like that of a dolphin now. But on rare occasions (like a couple of times a year), I get migraine auras and stuff disappears from my field of view. Can last about an hour. I feel like that's my visual cortex falling asleep.

paglaghoda 1y ago

Rest in peace to all the college dudes covering the whole syllabus within 24 hours of the exam

wslh 1y ago
It is always great to follow the instructions from a psychiatrist [1]. [1] https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2007/08/how_to_take_ritalin_correctly.html https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2007/08/how_to_take_ritalin_...
- plmpsu 1y ago
  I miss her.
  - MarcelOlsz 1y ago
    What happened? Did they pass or something or just stop posting or what?
    - _--__--__ 1y ago
      TLP was doxxed in a way that threatened their real life psychiatry practice, briefly blogged on Tumblr under a different psuedonym, and has since had little online presence other than rare tweets and randomly dropping a self-published book on Amazon (_Sadly, Porn_ by 'Edward Teach').
- mctt 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - johnisgood 1y ago
    There is much more to it. There is such a thing as state-dependent memory or context-dependent memory: recall is better when the environmental context (e.g. location, lighting, smells) matches the context of learning. If you study while on Adderall, which alters your neurochemical state (increasing dopamine and norepinephrine activity), you may recall that material more effectively when you are in the same neurochemical state, that is, also on Adderall. Similarly, if someone learns something while sober, they will generally recall it better when sober again, rather than under the influence of a drug. It is the phenomenon where memory recall is improved when the internal physiological or psychological state matches that during learning.

kurisufag 1y ago

anecdotally, i never feel better than when i haven't slept. spent 8pm tuesday -- 8pm thursday this week awake nursing cheap energy drinks, and not only could i manage a higher-than-usual level of focus, i was genuinely content. bombed a midterm halfway though, but at least i felt good about it.

barrenko 1y ago
Well, not sleeping through the night, you'll feel genuinely euphoric around dawn, it's one of the most immediate "cures" for clinical depression.
jcims 1y ago
I've got pretty bad ADHD and I find that my mind is more quiet, focused and productive on mornings after a night of 2-4 hrs of sleep than it has ever been on meds or anything else. It all falls apart by the afternoon, but for a while it's a nice feeling.
90ne1 1y ago
I see the same thing in myself. I've attributed it to a my brain moving to power-saving mode and muting some of my anxiety / perfectionism tendencies. Does this explanation resonate with you at all?
- kurisufag 1y ago
  That's possible. It feels a lot like the placebo component in drinking: if you're free to ignore one of the few things you need to /live/, it should be much easier psychologically to be carefree (similar to "oh, haha, i'm drunk, might as well get wacky").
puzzlingcaptcha 1y ago
It's not unusual to feel good after pulling an all-nighter. Sleep is when re-uptake of serotonin takes place, so if you interrupt it you end up with a surplus. Although there are also other possible explanations [1] 1. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2214505120 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2214505120

cyberdrunk2 1y ago

I wonder if this could help explain why creatine helps mitigate the effects of sleep deprivation. Since creatine aids in water retention. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16416332/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16416332/

layer8 1y ago
It’s not clear how water retention would help with the needed flushing.
- regularfry 1y ago
  Hypothetically, more water retention would mean that the fluid being flushed is less concentrated, and if the flushing mechanism is triggered by a certain concentration level then it'll happen less frequently. Hard to imagine that it would be worth more than a few percent though.
  - layer8 1y ago
    Less flushing sounds like it would also worsen the sleep deprivation, even if it reduces the momentary lapses.
jorvi 1y ago
Mix your cheap instant coffee with creatine powder and ORS for that ultimate early morning flavor bomb!
- zer00eyz 1y ago
  The mechanism of creatine isn't that straight forward. You need to take it for a while for it to build up, and for water to accumulate in cells. It would also be disgusting in a cup of coffee!
- pawelduda 1y ago
  Don't forget to intensely shake your head after consumption for a proper brain flush

earless1 1y ago

So biological garbage collection pauses then? skip sleep, and the brain tries to run gc cycles during runtime. Causing attention and performance latency spikes. Evolution wrote the original JVM.

layer8 1y ago
Luckily it doesn’t clear all unreferenced memory, though.
- DenisM 1y ago
  Cleanup is an LRU process. Once a memory lapses you have to relearn from life experience (or not at all).
  - thaumasiotes 1y ago
    No, a lapsed memory can be provoked. It doesn't have to be relearned. It is "lapsed" because the organizational path to it within your brain has been lost, like a book in a library that has been left out of the card catalog, but just like the book, if you happen to find it anyway, it will be there. Compare, from https://evolutionistx.wordpress.com/2016/12/16/anthropology-friday-the-life-and-adventures-of-william-buckley-pt-33/ https://evolutionistx.wordpress.com/2016/12/16/anthropology-... : > at the first news of English ships in the area, Buckley rushed to the spot. He attempted to make contact, but couldn’t swim out to the ship and couldn’t convince the ship to send a boat to him (Buckley had, at this point, forgotten how to speak English.) Buckley was again heartbroken until another ship showed up, and he found the English colonists and tried to approach them: > “Presently some of the natives saw me, and turning round, pointed me out to one of the white people; and seeing they had done so, I walked away from the well, up to their place, and seated myself there, having my spears and other war and hunting implements between my legs. The white men could not make me out–my half-cast colour, and extraordinary height and figure [Buckley was around 6’5” or taller,]–dressed, or rather undressed, as I was–completely confounding them as to my real character. At length one of them came up and asked me some questions, which I could not understand; but when he offered me bread–calling it by its name–a cloud appeared to pass from over my brain, and I soon repeated that, and other English words after him. … > “Word by word I began to comprehend what they said, and soon understood, as if by instinct, that they intended to remain in the country; that they had seen several of the native chiefs, with whom–as they said–they had exchanged all sorts of things for land; but that I knew could not have been I submit that it takes more than a day to learn English if you don't already know it. Once I was in a Toys-R-Us and noticed a cover image among the bottom-of-the-barrel DVD display which caused me to put what I was doing on hold for several minutes while I stared at the DVD. I bought it, and it turned out to be a movie I had watched many times when I was very young, but that information hadn't been accessible to me.

shahbaby 1y ago

> For example, what you don't want to do is NOT take amphetamines at testing if you had used them to study; Hard disagree there. If you get any anxiety during the test it's better to take it only while studying.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
lazide 1y ago
Huh? Care to explain?
85392_school 1y ago
Did you mean to reply to <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45772306 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45772306>?

thimkerbell 1y ago

[This is one of those article titles that would really benefit from adding one more word.]

cvoss 1y ago
Or some parentheses. Is "due to" naturally left-associative or right-associative? I would have said 'right', which gives the unintended reading of the sentence. Attention lapses due to (sleep deprivation due to flushing fluid from brain). (Attention lapses due to sleep deprivation) due to flushing fluid from brain.

epsilonic 1y ago

Exogenous ketones (such as BHB salts) are known to help with glymphatic drainage in the brain during sleep. I've used them extensively and have noticed improved sleep with nearly a doubling of the time spent in REM stage.

smith7018 1y ago
Could you go into detail what you take, how much, and when? I could always use a little boost for my sleep!
- epsilonic 1y ago
  Sure. When I have a night of poor sleep or anticipate one, I usually take 6 grams of BHB salts in the morning on an empty stomach. You can work your way up to a maximum of 12 grams, but I would advise caution since it can cause diarrhea. I would start by buying the cheapest product (nutricost) you can find online; if it costs more than $80 for ~300g, then you're probably getting ripped off. I noticed that I have very lucid dreams and experience strong hypnagogic jerks when I take this supplement. Here is some literature that I've perused to support my experimentation with BHB salts: 1. β-hydroxybutyrate is a metabolic regulator of proteostasis in the aged and Alzheimer disease brain (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2451945624004598 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S245194562...) 2. Refueling the post COVID-19 brain: potential role of ketogenic medium chain triglyceride supplementation: an hypothesis (https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3389/fnut.2023.1126534/full https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3...) My motivation for pursuing this was protracted sleep disturbance from long-covid.

0xbadcafebee 1y ago

So... can we trigger it manually? I'd love to be able to lay down and press the 'flush brain' button.

vrx-meta 1y ago
Research on NDSR, I have been using this for days I had to wake up without proper rest. If you have 15m, search this on YT for a guided practice and test it yourself.
- BobaFloutist 1y ago
  I believe you were referring to NSDR (Non-Sleep Deep Rest)?
  - Muromec 1y ago
    Mixing up acronyms is on brand with sleep deprivation.
  - vrx-meta 1y ago
    Yes, thanks for the correction. I need to get some real sleep.
- GavinMcG 1y ago
  NSDR, rather—Non-Sleep Deep Rest.
- niwtsol 1y ago
  Kind of related, but there is a concept of polyphasic sleep - where you sleep for small increments throughout the day (like 30 minutes every 3 hours). I did it for a bit at a startup thinking we were "hacking sleep" and "getting more productive hours out of every day!" - It takes awhile to transition to it, but once there, your scheduled "sleeps" are insane, 15 minutes, feel like straight to REM. The main problem was if you missed on schedule sleep you were a zombie.
  - 1y ago

bzmrgonz 1y ago

hmm.. this is interesting... the article says "spinal fluid exits the cerebrospinal fluid (csf) flows out of the brain... I wonder where it discharges these waste products. I ask because it is believed we have a sort of chimney on our backs. I think I read this on the article of the Irish lady who could detect alzheimers years before any modern medical detection systems. But maybe it is discharged in the gut? via the mesentery, the new organ they finally named fo rthe stuff that holds our intestines together. If anyone knows where it is discharged, please comment, I'm interested in this, because I do prolong waterfasts every 3 months, and I strongly believe the brain drains waste into my mouth during that time, because the taste in my mouth is godawful, but if there are other exit points the brain discharges waste, we probably need to know about them.

kingkawn 1y ago
The description of the mesentery as a single organ dates to the time of Da Vinci, at the latest.
canadiantim 1y ago
I believe it's discharged basically half directly into the venous system in the neck, the other half goes through the lymphatic/glymphatic system and ultimately also the venous system in the neck. That being said, that's just based on our very crude understandings and I'm sure there are other pathways.
jp57 1y ago
Why do you think that the taste in your mouth is waste draining from your brain and not the result of some metabolic changes in your body from the fast? Ketosis is known to cause a metallic taste in the mouth, for example.
alfonsodev 1y ago
What I understood from youtube gurus, take it with a grain of salt, is that your brain is taking ketones as source of energy to preserve the little glucose that goes into the system, and as result it consumes less oxygen. But I'm not sure the mouth taste comes from the brain's waste. To some degree, if you had your brain inflamed by bad eating habits, fasting would revert that and make the flushing more efficient as well. Again please take with with double grain of salt, since I don't even know inflame brain is a thing for sure, or the correct term.

pstuart 1y ago

My pet theory is that dreams are the brain booting up/shutting down and the equivalent of old analog TVs that have the flash of static and bloom/collapse on the screen when turning off/on.

gwbas1c 1y ago

Sometimes when I get a really bad migraine and poor sleep together, I can literally feel a flushing feeling in my head once I can fall asleep.

cozzyd 1y ago

As a chronic undersleeper, good thing I don't drive!

fsckboy 1y ago
isn't chronic undersleep associated with dementia in old age? meaning, whatever you have to do, stop doing that.

codethief 1y ago

> The scientists found that during these lapses, a wave of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) flows out of the brain > Lewis and colleagues showed that CSF flow during sleep follows a rhythmic pattern in and out of the brain > Most significantly, they found a flux of CSF out of the brain just as those lapses occurred. After each lapse, CSF flowed back into the brain. I can't believe the authors of the article didn't address one of the most obvious questions: Where does the CSF flow to and where does it flow back from? It's not like there are pipes leading out of the brain, or the CSF will just leave my brain through my ears or anything, will it?¹ What happens with the waste products? (¹ Though it would be kinda funny if this was where snot comes from.) EDIT: Wikipedia's got the answer: > Clearing waste: CSF allows for the removal of waste products from the brain,[3] and is critical in the brain's lymphatic system, called the glymphatic system. Metabolic waste products diffuse rapidly into CSF and are removed into the bloodstream as CSF is absorbed. When this goes awry, CSF can become toxic […] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebrospinal_fluid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebrospinal_fluid

svnt 1y ago
They didn’t put it in there because knowing the flow of CSF is so elemental to performing research in the field that it would be a waste of everyone’s time.
- codethief 1y ago
  This is a pop sci article, though?
dragonwriter 1y ago
> It's not like there are pipes leading out of the brain There are, in fact, “pipes” leading out of the brain. Cerebrospinal fluid is (and this is probably somewhat oversimplified) produced from material in the bloodstream in the ventricles in the brain, flows through the system of ventricles and then out of the brain into the subarachnoid space around the brain and spinal cord, and is then reabsorbed into the bloodstream.
- 1y ago

rickcarlino 1y ago

Could this be why SNRIs help some patients mitigate ADHD symptoms?

JumpCrisscross 1y ago

Could ADHD be caused by a broken flushing response? Lots of flushing followed by intense focus caused by the tabula rasa?

delecti 1y ago
I'm not an expert, but that wouldn't really fit with my understanding of ADHD. It's not that we have a lack of attention ("defecit" of attention, as the name suggests), it's an impaired ability to direct it. To abuse a metaphor, the sleep-deprivation-induced spontaneous CSF flush is slamming on the brakes of a car, and ADHD related attention shifts would be more like a drunk toddler is turning the steering wheel wherever they please, but the gas/brakes still work fine.
luciferin 1y ago
I suppose it's possible, but it seems less likely to me because ADHD is a life long neurodevelopmental disorder that shows [visible physical changes in the brain on scans](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7879851/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7879851/). That said, there are statistically more people with narcolepsy who have ADHD, and the same goes for sleep apnea. There's a number of hypotheses I've read as to why, to name a couple: related epigenetic causes, or [possible misdiagnosis](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7336577/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7336577/) (narcolepsy is much harder to diagnose than ADHD if you don't have textbook symptoms). So there is definitely something there.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
Citizen8396 1y ago
Disordered sleep can cause executive dysfunction similar to ADHD, but it does not cause ADHD. It certainly can exacerbate it or be diagnosed incorrectly.
Geee 1y ago
Not sure if it's related, but I have way more ADHD-like symptoms if I'm on late sleep schedule, but sleeping the same amount of hours.

HEmanZ 1y ago

I hope that the actual medical field starts taking note of this. My wife still has to work 24 hour shifts with no sleep, performing emergency surgeries no matter how long it has been since she slept. During residency only a few years ago she and her co-residents were almost weekly required to do 36 hour shifts (on top of their regular 16 hours per day, 5 day per week schedule) and once even a 48 hour shift when the hospital was short staffed. Of course I’m sure they won’t. No one cares if doctors are over worked.

lordnacho 1y ago
I've never understood those long shifts. Unless a shift just means you are there but sleeping, what is the reason for allowing it? We don't let truck drivers do 24h shifts, why do doctors the world over seem to do this?
- munificent 1y ago
  My understanding is that the research shows that the harm to patient care from information loss during doctor shift turnover is worse than the harm from fatigued doctors. Yes, a tired doctor sucks. But a tired doctor who already has the patient's state loaded into their head may still be better than doctor who is completely fresh in both senses. It's a hard problem.
  - harperlee 1y ago
    That only works if the mean stay in the hospital (or at least the critical care period) is several hours but also way below 24h…
    - Timon3 1y ago
      Longer shifts mean fewer shift turnovers for any patients that stay a sufficient amount of time, especially if longer than 24h. The world doesn't run on boolean logic. A solution can improve an issue without solving it completely.
  - 1y ago

kurtis_reed 1y ago

Title sucks

Olshansky 1y ago

Need a cron job to flush that cache

shomp 1y ago

In high school a friend of mine told me about "microsleep" and how your brain will oscillate into it if you're under-rested. This would align with that theory.

SilentM68 1y ago

That is very interesting. I have a somewhat related issue with sleep cycles. This issue, waking around 3:00am every morning then not going back to sleep until 6 or 7am, is not really a productive sleep cycle. I read somewhere that taking a spoon of sugary substance, like Raw Honey, MCT or Collagen, before going to bed can replenish the brain of this energy, so it becomes easier to fall asleep. I've been trying it with two to three spoons of honey, right before hitting the sack to see if it can help me fall asleep again. It seems to be having a somewhat positive effect as it does not take me too long to go back to sleep.

rsync 1y ago
Extremely fine optimizations - like you are describing - only make sense after the major, gross actions have already been exhausted. Do you have a regular, intensive, exercise routine with a good mix of aerobic and resistance training? Don’t buy the fancy high flow air filter if you’re not even doing oil changes…

binary132 1y ago

What I’m picking up here is that if I can just get an automated CSF circulator installed I won’t need to sleep or get distracted when I’m tired. That was the point of this article, right?

boogieknite 1y ago

should have given them a cup of joe while in the fmri to see what difference that made

gcanyon 1y ago

What I want to know is: can we trigger these flushes? My grandfather died of/with Alzheimer’s, and I’d prefer not to follow in his footsteps. If we determine that these flushes are key to good brain health, and there were a way either through a pill or even a treatment to up the frequency of these flushes, that would be awesome.

HPsquared 1y ago
Choosing to sleep more, I guess.
pedalpete 1y ago
We can't "trigger" the flushes, however, it looks like we can increase the power of the pump. This is specifically the area we work in traditionally called slow-wave enhancement which is stimulating the restorative function of sleep. This paper [1] specifically looks at amyloid response as a result of stimulation and shows a corresponding relationship between stimulation response, amyloid response, and memory. I wouldn't say it's putting a bow on the results, but it is a very promising result. If you're curious about what we're building, I'll be posting a ShowHN next week which dives into some of the data in a way regulatory requirements don't permit us to do on our website, but until then, check out https://affectablesleep.com https://affectablesleep.com [1] https://doi.org/10.1093/ageing/afad228 https://doi.org/10.1093/ageing/afad228
- hammock 1y ago
  > We can't "trigger" the flushes How do you know that?
  - pedalpete 1y ago
    I work in neurotech/sleeptech and this is the primary function our work focuses on. However, I also mis-stated that. It is possible to create a slow-wave, however only through magnetic stimulation (rTMS), but that is not realistic outside of a hospital environment.

assimpleaspossi 1y ago

Maybe unrelated but, years ago, I had a job that had me criss-crossing the country by plane Monday through Friday and sometimes Saturday. So my sleep and the time zones and hotels could sometimes mess with me. One day, I went to a grocery store and mid-turn onto another street, I forgot what city I was in. Worse, I was half a mile from my apartment in my home town.

hollerith 1y ago
How long did it take you to orient or to get home (whichever one happened first)?
- assimpleaspossi 1y ago
  It was very brief. Only a few seconds

handfuloflight 1y ago

I can feel when this fluid hasn't properly flushed.

heywoods 1y ago

This reminds me of delirium tremens a bit. Same compensatory mechanism, different sleep process - or at least that's the pattern I'm seeing. The MIT study shows CSF waves—normally a sleep-only process that flushes metabolic waste—intruding into wakefulness when you're sleep-deprived. Your brain is apparently so desperate for the cleanup that it forces the process to happen anyway. Cost: attention lapses. From what I've read, delirium tremens during alcohol withdrawal seems to follow a similar pattern, except it's REM sleep intruding into waking consciousness instead of CSF flushing. [Polysomnographic studies from the 1960s-80s](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7318677/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7318677/) documented this. Patients in alcohol withdrawal exhibit what researchers call ["Stage 1-REM"](https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/delirium-tremens https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/delirium-t...)—a hybrid state where wakefulness and REM sleep characteristics get mixed together. Right before full-blown DTs, [some patients hit 100% Stage 1-REM](https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4757-0632-1_36 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4757-0632-1_...). The hallucinations appear to be [literally enacted dreams](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165178117314440 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01651...) occurring while technically awake. The sleep-wake boundary just completely breaks down. What strikes me is the system-level similarity here. Sleep normally maintains clean states: you're either awake (alert, reality-testing intact, no CSF flushing) or asleep (offline, dreams permitted, maintenance running). But when the system gets stressed enough—whether through sleep deprivation or the neurochemical chaos of alcohol withdrawal—it seems to start making desperate tradeoffs. The brain apparently needs certain processes to run. Period. Total no-brainer! CSF flushing can't wait indefinitely. Neither can REM sleep, which serves its own critical functions. So when normal sleep architecture fails, the system appears to force these processes anyway, even though the conditions are completely wrong for them. Maybe that's why the costs are so specific. CSF intrusion during wakefulness costs you attention. REM intrusion costs you reality testing, because REM is the state where your brain accepts impossible narratives without question. Same compensatory mechanism, different critical process forced into the wrong state. What I find interesting is how the brain knows what lever it needs to pull and how it pulls it. Sleep deprivation forces waste removal. REM deprivation forces wakeful dream states; which might be a side effect not the actual goal. The brain seems to know what maintenance is overdue and attempts the repair, consequences be damned.

hyperjeff 1y ago

Back when I used to meditate regularly, I would find that an extra meditation in the middle of a sleepless night would go a long way toward pushing off the need for sleep. Generally, meditating always left me in a slightly heightened awake state. Perhaps the help with brain fluid regulation is a core reason for both effects. (I should go back to meditating again.)

pedalpete 1y ago

This is fascinating, and somewhat directly related to the work we do increasing slow-wave response during sleep. For those who are not aware, slow-wave are the hallmark of deep sleep and closely linked to the flushing the glymphatic system, which is what they are referring to in this article. We can't create slow-waves, but we can increase their effectiveness through precisely timed auditory stimulation. I'll be posting a Show HN next week which dives into the data of how this works, but if you want to know more, there is info on our website and links to over 50 published peer-reviewed papers. https://affectablesleep.com https://affectablesleep.com This paper specifically looks at amyloid clearance as a result of this glymphatic flush https://doi.org/10.1093/ageing/afad228 https://doi.org/10.1093/ageing/afad228 While many people will point to "getting more sleep" that isn't really the answer. More time asleep does not automatically mean increased glymphatic flush. Additionally, as we age, the power of the pump gets weaker, and more sleep does not help with that. We believe the focus on counting minutes of sleep misses the point of what makes sleep truly restorative and beneficial, which are the neurological processes, and downstream physiological changes as a result. This is why we talk about restorative function, and that should be the focus of sleep health, not time. After all, you wouldn't measure your diet based on how much time you spend chewing, would you?

tim333 1y ago

Wikipedia has a nice moving MRI of the flushing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebrospinal_fluid#Circulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebrospinal_fluid#Circulatio...

attisday 1y ago

Sleep is indeed important