Comment by russellbeattie
1 year ago
So, if we could induce those brain waves we wouldn't need sleep? Maybe in the future our AirPods will have a "rejuvenate" feature which plays tones that cause sleep like brain waves to go through and clean out our neurons.
Probably not... I think our brains are like LLMs. We train them on sensory input we perceive over time, building up a data model that is unique to us. The models may generate similar results, but each person's brains are wired as differently as the raw binary data stored in ChatGPT vs Llama or Gemini. Thus the cleaning mechanism is probably unique per person as well.
But I don't really have a clue. It's just a logical inference.
I'd think that the brain isn't the only part of the human body that needs sleep/rest. Becoming immobile for such a long amount of time must have a much larger systemic purpose given that this is how our bodies evolved.
Your spine contracts during the day and releases while you sleep at night.
I have an idea: if you induced those brain waves, you would technically be asleep. So you would not actually be magically given more awake time.
We don't know how to induce slow-waves yet, but lots of research around how we can increase the function.
The mechanism is very not unique. Unlike other neuronal activity, the slow-waves are synchronous firing of neurons, and almost all brains respond to interruptions 30 degrees off the peak of the wave.
It's much more health engineering than much of the medicine I'm aware of.
We've been working on this for the last 4 years at https://affectablesleep.com
induction may cause a feeling of restedness, but unless the actual fluid pumps out the waste, you'd likely get diminishing, perhaps even damaging results if you over use it... like and "sleep spell" it has a cooldown that is needed for actual biological pumping time