Speaker:
"Brain State-Dependent Regulation of Glymphatic Transport" - Maiken Nedergaard, MD, DMSc | Dean's Professor and Co-Director, Center for Translational Neuromedicine, University of Rochester Medical Center, New York, Professor, Glial Cell Biology, Center for Neuroscience, University of Copenhagen, Denmark | Maiken Nedergaard, MD, DMSc is Dean's Professor and Co-Director of the Center for Translational Neuromedicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) in Rochester, NY and Professor of Glial Cell Biology at the Center for Neuroscience at the University of Copenhagen (KU), Denmark. Her group described the glymphatic system, a brain equivalent of the lymphatic system within which cerebrospinal fluid diffuses rapidly and mixes with interstitial fluids, thereby filtering metabolic byproducts that accumulate due to neuronal activity. The glymphatic system dramatically increases its activity during sleep compared to waking - brain cleaning and detoxification is thus facilitated during sleep, explaining sleep's restorative effect. Dr. Nedergaard is an elected member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, Royal Academy of Pharmacy of Spain, and Academia Europaea. In 2022 she received the Outstanding Scientific Achievement Award, from the Sleep Research Society. In 2023, she received the 21st Perl/UNC Neuroscience Prize and the Andres Jahre's Award for Medical Research.