Sleeping Pills: Sleeping pills may disrupt the brain’s nightly cleansing system.
New research on mice shows that sleeping pills may disrupt the brain’s nightly cleansing system, and for this reason, they cannot provide the quality sleep expected.
According to Live Science, brain cells, like other body cells, produce a lot of waste materials that must be regularly eliminated to prevent accumulation and damage. Some of these waste materials are toxic molecules linked to degenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s disease.
Sleeping Pills, This cleansing process is typically carried out by the “glymphatic” system, a network of tunnels surrounding the brain’s blood vessels. These tunnels contain a colorless fluid called cerebrospinal fluid, which collects waste materials from cells and removes them from the brain. These waste materials are then processed and disposed of by the body’s larger waste disposal system, the lymphatic system.
Why Sleeping Pills Can’t Provide Quality Sleep
The glymphatic system is always active, but evidence shows that its primary function occurs during sleep. However, scientists have not yet determined exactly what triggers and activates this process in the brain.
Sleeping Pills, It has now been found that the glymphatic cleansing process, at least in mice, is triggered by a chemical called norepinephrine (also known as noradrenaline). This chemical is released by the brainstem and is mainly known for its role in the “fight or flight” response, a physiological reaction activated during stress or threat.
The study’s results regarding the role of norepinephrine in brain cleansing were published on January 8 in Cell journal.
In the study, brain scans showed that during deep sleep—specifically, non-REM sleep (a type of deep sleep occurring when transitioning from wakefulness to sleep)—norepinephrine is released in waves every 50 seconds.
Sleeping Pills, This temporary increase in norepinephrine levels causes the blood vessels in the brain to constrict, reducing blood flow. This creates more space for cerebrospinal fluid to pass through the brain’s glymphatic system and collect cellular waste. When the norepinephrine levels drop again, the system returns to its baseline state, ready for the next cycle.
The researchers administered a common sleeping pill called zolpidem (brand name Ambien) to mice and observed that this drug reduced the release of norepinephrine by 50% (compared to mice that slept without the drug) and decreased cerebrospinal fluid flow through the glymphatic system by 30%.
Sleeping Pills, These findings have not yet been confirmed in humans. However, previous studies have shown that the human brain also exhibits similar fluctuations in blood and cerebrospinal fluid flow during deep sleep, which may also be linked to norepinephrine. Therefore, it seems that the human glymphatic system functions similarly to that of mice.
This study suggests that while sleeping pills like zolpidem may help people fall asleep faster, they might unintentionally reduce sleep quality and increase the risk of certain diseases.
Sleeping Pills, Natalie Haglund, the lead researcher and cognitive neuroscience scientist at the University of Oxford, UK, says, “Sleeping pills are generally associated with higher mortality rates and cognitive decline. Existing evidence also suggests that sleeping pills probably do not provide quality sleep.”
Haglund added that researchers plan to investigate in the future whether sleeping pills have long-term effects on the brain’s nightly cleansing process. If such an effect is proven, scientists may need to develop new sleeping medications that do not interfere with the glymphatic system.
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