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[00:00.70] Beta-amyloids are substances linked to problems in the brain including Alzheimer’s disease.

[00:11.33] When scientists injected mice with beta-amyloids, the substance left the brain faster when the animals were sleeping.

[00:22.75] It is not clear exactly how the system works.

[00:28.59] However, some research has shown that the movement of blood vessels might help move the waste-clearing fluid where it needs to go.

[00:40.54] Finding the system in humans is not easy.

[00:45.59] Regular MRI scans can show some of the fluid-filled channels.

[00:51.71] But Piantino said the scans do not show their purpose.

[00:58.34] To find out more, his team at Oregon Health & Science University injected a substance called a tracer into five patients.

[01:11.11] The tracer “lit up” during MRI scans.

[01:16.42] Twenty-four to 48 hours later, the tracer material was seen moving through the brain using the channels as in the earlier research on mice.

[01:30.50] Rochester’s Dr. Maiken Nedergaard predicts that the study will increase interest in how brain waste clearance connects to people’s health.

[01:44.04] But to test if better sleep or other treatments might really increase waste clearance and improve health, researchers "have to be able to measure glymphatic function in people,” said Dr. Jeff Iliff.

[02:01.57] He is with the University of Washington and has helped lead waste-clearance research.

[02:09.81] The question is whether the new study might point to ways of measuring the process.

[02:17.78] Sleep is not the only question.

[02:21.50] For example, animal studies show that a blood pressure drug now used to treat the stress disorder called PTSD might improve glymphatic clearing.

[02:36.11] Iliff and Dr. Elaine Peskind plan to study this drug in a group of patients.

[02:44.61] Larger studies in healthy people are also needed.

[02:49.65] In addition, Piantino, who used tracer chemicals in people, wants to find an easier, noninvasive test to follow the waste clearance.

[03:04.00] “We cannot study all the questions by injecting people,” he said.