Further facts on glymphatics: Mapping out their passageways

PREMIUM CONTENT subscriber access

In my past newsletter, Deep Dive into Dementia: Some surprising therapeutics proposed, I described the brain’s lymphatic drainage system and its role in neurodegenerative diseases:

“The big news coming just a year after this, was the discovery of brain’s lymphatic system - glymphatics. It was aptly named, “the garbage truck of the brain” because it flushed out the toxins floating in the brain parenchyma, through the neuropil, with each heart beat arterial pulse. Their results show that during sleep a plumbing system may open, letting fluid flow rapidly through the brain. The glymphatic system helps control the flow of cerebrospinal fluid, long thought to be a glial/astrocyte function.”

Convective glymphatic fluxes of CSF and ISF propel the waste products of neuron metabolism into the paravenous space, from which they are directed into lymphatic vessels and ultimately return to the general circulation for clearance by the kidney and liver.—Maiken Nedergaard

Since its discovery, many new findings were revealed, now to be shared here.