During sleep, blood vessels in the brain slowly expand and contract, helping fluids circulate and clear waste from the brain. BrainSomnia studies how these natural mechanical forces contribute to the removal of harmful proteins linked to diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. Our goal is to develop new tools to better understand, monitor, and eventually improve brain clearance during sleep to support healthy ageing.
Our approach combines physics-based computer models with measurements of brain blood vessel pulsation during sleep to estimate how efficiently the brain clears waste. Combining engineering, neuroscience, and sleep monitoring, our approach will allow a new non-invasive way to estimate brain clearance efficiency for earlier detection of risk for neurodegenerative diseases.
