Does your brain take out the trash while you sleep?

We know that sleep helps us to learn and remember things better, but a new study by the University of Rochester Medical Center has found that it also helps our brain to clean out any liquid waste. The study also shows that our brain cells actually shrink while we’re asleep, which allows more room for the waste to exit the brain. “During the daytime, only 5 percent of this fluid can move out of there; the whole system is clogged, like a Manhattan traffic jam,” explains Dr. Charles Czeisler, chief of the division of sleep medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Some of the liquid waste that is disposed of is a protein that some experts believe is associated with Alzheimer’sdisease, so sleep plays an important role in disease prevention. More research is needed, but the benefits of sleep can’t be denied.

Boston Globe, 10/18/13