Blood Brain Barrier

The blood brain barrier (BBB) prevents toxins in the blood entering the brain. It supplies brain tissues with nutrients, and filters harmful compounds from the brain back to the bloodstream

Historically the BBB challenged the notion of a glymphatic system. Yet, there are seven areas where the brain does not have this protection; the circumventricular organs.

It has also been found that weaknesses can be caused in the BBB for various reasons, increasing its permeability.

CVOs

Circumventricular organs enable hormones and substances that trigger changes in brain function safe passage through the blood brain barrier.

Hormones, for example, can be too large a molecule to pass through the blood brain barrier. So CVOs enable passage in and out of particular areas of the brain like the hypothalamus.

Biofeedback

The hypothalamus is vital in controlling many bodily functions like the release of hormones e.g. sending signals from the brain to the pancreas to determine the body’s level of insulin.

This process is called biofeedback and is only possible via circumventricular organs to allowing large molecules like hormones to bypass the blood brain barrier.

Glymphatic System

Dr Perrin hypothesised this since 1989 which was discounted due to there being the blood brain barrier. Now it is widely accepted there is a system of drainage of toxins from the brain.

Named in 2013 due to its dependence upon glial cells and its similarities with the lymphatic system, the glymphatic system is a drainage system within the central nervous system.

Central Nervous System

Your brain and spinal cord make up the central nervous system, controlling everything you do such as, muscle movement, organ function, complex thinking and planning.

Cerebrospinal fluid protects this system and removes waste products from the brain, draining toxins through paravascula and perivascular spaces to deposit in the lymphatic system.

Drainage Channels

Paravascular spaces are gaps next to blood vessels and perivascular spaces are in arterial walls. Toxins pass through these, onto the lymphatic system via perforations in the skull.

Further drainage channels exist round the cribriform plate and cranial nerves; the olfactory (nose) optic (eye), auditory (ear) and trigeminal (cheek) nerves, and down the spinal cord.

Lymphatic System

The lymphatic system is part of the immune system with tissues, lymph fossils and organs connecting lymph nodes. It is a one-way drainage system pumping lymph around the body.

Lymph consists of white blood cells which fight infection, carrying bacteria or toxins to lymph nodes where lymphocytes break down bacteria, viruses, damaged and cancer cells.

Lymphatic Pump

Lymphatic vessels which transport lymph walls like the fish gills, engulfing and dispelling waste products and destroyed bacteria back into the bloodstream for the liver to process.

The thoracic duct, located in the thoracic spine, controls the pumping of the lymphatic system and itself is controlled by the sympathetic nervous system.

SNS

The sympathetic nervous system originates from the spinal cord and runs adjacent to the thoracic spine, controlling involuntary actions like breathing, heart rate and our fight or flight response in dangerous or stressful situations.

If under sustained stress, including mechanical spinal stress, the system can crash, hampering the pumping mechanism and lead to toxin build up and pumping lymph the wrong way round this one-way, lymphatic system.