This could be a huge huge discovery moving forward. The glymphatic system was only discovered in 2013 when researchers were trying to figure out how the brain cleared cellular waste since the brain does not have a lymphatic system. However, even with its discovery it was still unknown how it worked and because of the limitations in imaging that occur due to having to stay still it there wasn't a clear way to figure it out until this study.

It was discovered that Norepinephrine, was the key player in getting the glymphatic system to work. The study found that norepinephrine is released in slow waves that roll over the brain roughly once a minute. This oscillatory norepinephrine release proved crucial to the operation of the glymphatic system since it acted like a pump causing the blood vessels to constrict and dilate flushing out cellular waste.

Norepinephrine only did this though in a certain phase of sleep and it wasn't REM but rather NREM. Scientists then wanted to look at what would happen if you were to increase the NREM time and used a drug that most people have heard of to do so... Ambien. However, instead of boosting brain cleaning the addition of NREM boosting Ambien STOPPED the cycle all together. This meant that there were no norepinephrine fluctuations to flush the cellular waste.

This could be a huge step in understanding numerous things about the brain but most importantly it showed that amyloid beta, a cellular waste product, that was typically removed was not. Amyloid beta has been found in the brains of patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Since heavy Ambien use has previously been linked to Alzheimer's disease this helps possibly answer some of the critical things that we do not understand about the disease and thus could help us create treatments for this growing medical issue.

Only additional research into this area will prove if this is correct or not but this is a huge huge discovery and helps us start to link critical issues together.