News Health & Medicine

Brain’s hidden sewers revealed

Specialized cells host a hitherto unknown cleansing system

By Laura Sanders

- More than 2 years ago

The brain is a self-cleaning machine. A previously unknown plumbing system blasts out waste by flushing it with the brain’s cleaning solution — cerebrospinal fluid.

In mice, the flow of the brain’s cleaning solution is controlled by channels (purple) on specialized brain cells called astrocytes (green). These channels run alongside blood vessels in the brain.