"What makes sleep so mentally refreshing? University of Rochester
neuroscientist Jeff Iliff addressed the crowd gathered at a September
2014 TEDMED event and explained his amazing new discoveries. The words he used perfectly match what one would expect while describing the works of an
ingenious designer.
Other organs rely on the lymphatic system to remove metabolic waste that builds up in the spaces outside cells, but no lymph vessels exist behind the skull. Since the brain uses a fourth of all the body’s energy, there must be some other mechanism at work to clear away brain waste.
Iliff said, “We've found that sleep may actually be a kind of elegant design solution to some of the brain's most basic needs, a unique way that the brain meets the high demands and the narrow margins that set it apart from all the other organs of the body.”
During sleep, special cells found alongside blood vessels pump cerebrospinal fluid from the edges of the brain to its center. The brain’s neurons actually shrink to permit the fluid to rush through the tiny spaces between cells where it picks up and carries off metabolic waste products.
He used words like “elegant,” “beautiful,” “solution,” and “clever design” to describe how the brain—an “unimaginably complex mechanism”—bathes itself.
The brain is amazing, but it cannot build its own parts any more than a computer can install new hardware all by itself." ICR
Psalm 139:14
Other organs rely on the lymphatic system to remove metabolic waste that builds up in the spaces outside cells, but no lymph vessels exist behind the skull. Since the brain uses a fourth of all the body’s energy, there must be some other mechanism at work to clear away brain waste.
Iliff said, “We've found that sleep may actually be a kind of elegant design solution to some of the brain's most basic needs, a unique way that the brain meets the high demands and the narrow margins that set it apart from all the other organs of the body.”
During sleep, special cells found alongside blood vessels pump cerebrospinal fluid from the edges of the brain to its center. The brain’s neurons actually shrink to permit the fluid to rush through the tiny spaces between cells where it picks up and carries off metabolic waste products.
He used words like “elegant,” “beautiful,” “solution,” and “clever design” to describe how the brain—an “unimaginably complex mechanism”—bathes itself.
The brain is amazing, but it cannot build its own parts any more than a computer can install new hardware all by itself." ICR
I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made:
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