Saturday, July 6, 2013

DailyTech - Brain Waste Removal System May Lead to Better Alzheimer's Disease Treatments

DailyTech - Brain Waste Removal System May Lead to Better Alzheimer's Disease Treatments: Researchers from the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) -- led by Maiken Nedergaard, M.D., D.M.Sc., co-director of the URMC Center for Translational Neuromedicine -- detailed a recently discovered waste removal system in the brain, and believes it could hold the key to understanding and treating diseases like Alzheimer's.

It's been long understood that the lymphatic system, which is a circulatory network of vessels and organs, is responsible for waste removal throughout the body. However, it doesn't perform this task in the brain. Last August, URMC researchers discovered the glymphatic system, which filled in the missing piece as the brain's own "garbage truck."

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