The study reports evidence for a lymphatic-like network along the middle meningeal artery that may help clear cerebrospinal fluid and waste from the human brain. Using extended MRI scans in five healthy adults and high-resolution tissue mapping, researchers observed slow drainage from the underside of the brain and cell types typical of lymphatic vessels in the surrounding tissue. Although the cohort is very small, the findings offer initial anatomical baselines and a direction for further research into brain waste clearance and its role in aging and neurodegeneration.
Hidden Brain Drain: Lymphatic Network Along the Middle Meningeal Artery May Clear Waste
The study reports evidence for a lymphatic-like network along the middle meningeal artery that may help clear cerebrospinal fluid and waste from the human brain. Using extended MRI scans in five healthy adults and high-resolution tissue mapping, researchers observed slow drainage from the underside of the brain and cell types typical of lymphatic vessels in the surrounding tissue. Although the cohort is very small, the findings offer initial anatomical baselines and a direction for further research into brain waste clearance and its role in aging and neurodegeneration.
05:43, 09.11.2025Science
Hidden Brain Drain: A New Look at Waste Clearance
A subtle but potentially important pathway for clearing waste from the human brain has been described. In a study published in Science, researchers report evidence for a network of lymphatic vessels associated with the middle meningeal artery that appears to play a role in removing cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and other waste products from the brain.
Onder Albayram and colleagues at the Medical University of South Carolina used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to trace CSF movement in five healthy adults during extended five-hour imaging sessions. The team observed slow, real-time drainage from the underside of the brain that they interpret as passive lymphatic-like flow channeling fluid away from the cranial space.
To corroborate the MRI findings, the researchers performed high-resolution anatomical imaging of tissue surrounding the middle meningeal artery. That mapping revealed multiple cell types in the region—cell types that are commonly found in lymphatic vessels elsewhere in the body—supporting the notion of a lymphatic-like drainage network running alongside the artery rather than the artery itself being lymphatic.
“A major challenge in brain research is that we still don’t fully understand how a healthy brain functions and ages,” said Albayram in a statement. “Once we understand what ‘normal’ looks like, we can recognize early signs of disease and design better treatments.”
The authors and the article emphasize important caveats: the study cohort was very small (five people), and more work is needed to confirm these pathways, to determine how they change with age or disease, and to establish their physiological significance. If validated in larger and more diverse samples, mapping the brain’s lymphatic connections could have broad implications for understanding neurodegeneration, age-related cognitive decline, and other disorders linked to impaired waste clearance.
What this means: The study provides initial anatomical baseline data and a promising direction for future research into how the human brain disposes of waste—an area that remains poorly characterized but could be critical for early diagnosis and new treatments.