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Synchronized neuronal activity drives waste fluid flow

Active neurons can stimulate the clearance of their own metabolic waste by driving changes to ion gradients in the surrounding fluid and by promoting the pulsation of nearby blood vessels.
  1. Lauren Hablitz

    1. Lauren Hablitz is in the Center for Translational Neuromedicine, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, New York 14642, USA.

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  2. Maiken Nedergaard

    1. Maiken Nedergaard is in the Center for Translational Neuromedicine, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, New York 14642, USA.

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The brain is responsible for how humans interact with the world. The firing of thousands of neurons in complex codes generates and integrates movement, thought and behaviour. This electrical activity is energy dependent and, much like fish in an aquarium making the water dirty, neuronal activity fills the brain’s fluid with waste. But brain tissue lacks the waste-clearance network that is present in the rest of the body — the lymphatic system. Instead, the brain has developed an equivalent network of passageways alongside blood vessels (perivascular spaces), known as the glymphatic system1. Writing in Nature, Murdock et al.2 and Jiang-Xie et al.3 provide direct evidence that neuronal activation can accelerate glymphatic waste clearance from the brain.

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Nature 627, 44-45 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00422-z

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Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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