Neuroscience In a Study on Mice, Scientists Show How the Brain Washes Itself During Sleep

[tryptakid]

An article from Smithsonian magazine highlights a study exploring brain toxin cleansing with a focus on how zolpidem inhibits this process (linked for those on dark mode).

The team then tested the impact of Zolpidem (a common sleep medication also known as Ambien or Zolpimist) on this system, and found that the norepinephrine waves during sleep decreased by 50 percent and fluid transport into the brain decreased by around 30 percent in zolpidem-treated mice. These results suggest that sleeping aids that impact norepinephrine production—which includes most sleeping aids—might harm the brain’s waste-removal system.

“Human sleep architecture is still fairly different than a mouse, but we do have the same brain circuit that was studied here,” Laura Lewis, a neuroscientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was not involved in the study, tells New Scientist’s Grace Wade. “Some of these fundamental mechanisms are likely to apply to us as well.”

Originally published in the journal Cell these findings could suggest the mechanism behind a link between zolpidem use and dementia that drew attention a few years ago.

Thought it was relevant so I figured I would post here. I was a long time zolpidem user -started in roughly 2002 while in college, and have taken off and on over the years, with increased frequency beginning around 2013 and continuing until last year when I made the switch to Dayvigo (orexin antagonist) which I took for less than a week and then stopped. I haven't needed to take a sleep aid since September (other than occasionally taking 0.3mg of melatonin). Dayvigo seems to have repaired my sleep architecture as it had been years since I felt rested from sleep unless taking zolpidem, but also would experience sleep quality fluctuations as well as random nights of total insomnia despite taking zolpidem. The above publication hits close to home as I wonder what kind of impact this chronic, though not always constant, use of zolpidem was having on my cognitive and emotional faculties, or whether I would have faced cognitive issues in the next few decades. Either way, thought I would share.