Ian Sample

And then there are things that can disrupt that.

Coming up, how the quality of your sleep today can impact your brain's health in the future.

Mike, and you mentioned that age, chronic stress and some mental illnesses can disrupt this really important waste clearance system.

But we also know that there's a connection between these conditions and our risk of dementia.

And I'm really interested in what the link is there.

Why and how might these be related?

Okay, so I can see how poor sleep could make it harder for our brains to clear out waste and how that could potentially drive dementia.

But might there not be more to it?

Maybe these problems with sleep are themselves early signs of dementia.

And I think that is really interesting because I was wondering that...

given the richness of the understanding of this glymphatic system that scientists like yourself are now really getting, whether there are realistic clinical applications.

And it sounds like you're saying there are ways to put the knowledge we know now already to good use, potentially, to help some of these patients.

So finally, Maiken, clearly deep sleep is not this quiet, inactive state of rest that some of us might have thought it was.

But I'm wondering what our listeners should take away from this work we've been talking about, how they should be thinking about their own approach to sleep.

Thanks to Professor Maiken Nadergaard.

And that's all from us.

This episode was produced by Ellie Sands.

The sound design was by Ross Burns and the executive producer was Ellie Burey.

We'll be back on Thursday.

See you then.