Fluid oscillations in human sleep (opens in new tab)

Press writeup: http://www.bu.edu/articles/2019/cerebrospinal-fluid-washing-...

The HN title seems quite misleading compared to the original title of "Coupled electrophysiological, hemodynamic, and cerebrospinal fluid oscillations in human sleep" (which could be shortened using CSF). The main focus of the study is measuring cerebrospinal fluid flows and its finding that CSF flow is correlated with slow wave EEG activity in this three phase neurons quiet, blood flow decreased, CSF flow increase pattern. The abstract does reference some work from 2006/2010 about consolidation and from 2015 about waste cleaning, but the paper is not a literature review paper so there's better writing on that subject elsewhere.

Almost like the brain has a compaction and garbage collection phase.

It would be interesting to have them study brain functions during the so called “transcendental” meditation. The school claims that it were a third state of brain activity, somewhere inbetween of sleeping and being conscious. In my experience it also may have the cleaning effect.

A side thought about this: dreams.

I have this theory that dreams are the experience of our brains rebooting after being taken down for maintenance; kind of like reading from uninitialized memory.

Sounds like the brain uses Doug Lea Malloc

Cleaning waste and Consolidating are almost opposite functions, I believe it archives the memory and waste together. I suffered from a traumatic event and simultaneously forgot about a bank account I opened a week earlier. Seven years later I tried to open a new account at the bank, was reminded about the account after getting into an argument with the manager, and the trauma returned in the form of insomnia and nightmares.