How Sleep Apnea Affects Your Brain

When somebody has sleep apnea, particular scores higher, they don't get very much deep sleep. And our brain needs to clear itself out at night. So we have these. The system called the glymphatic system. It's kind of like the lymphatic system, but with a G that cleans out our brain at night. And there's got to be a differential in the brain and the blood of these proteins so we can get them out of our brain. And when deep sleep is interrupted, this system is not very effective. The brain is not getting rid of these toxins that accumulate. Eventually they accumulate, and we can see them on an mri. And that's how. That's part of how we diagnose Alzheimer's. Alzheimer's diagnosis, mostly a clinical diagnosis. There's also. You can do a spinal tap and find these proteins high in the spinal fluid.