00:00Total tau spikes during sleep loss.
00:02But what actually causes this dangerous surge?
00:05This protein is a major biological marker for Alzheimer's and brain stress.
00:09So what happens if a healthy young adult stays awake for 24 hours straight?
00:14During the day, a normal neuron fires rhythmically.
00:17And as a routine byproduct of this electrical activity,
00:20it naturally sheds tiny amounts of structural protein.
00:23That protein is called total tau, or T-tau.
00:26But at the 24-hour mark, denied its normal sleep cycle, the neuron can't power down.
00:32It's forced into a continuous state of unrelenting electrical activity.
00:36Without sleep, the brain's nighttime waste clearance system shuts down.
00:40But a backed-up drain alone can't explain such a massive, rapid surge of tau in the bloodstream.
00:46Here's the true mechanism.
00:47That sustained electrical activity physically stresses the overstimulated neuron.
00:52Acting like a running faucet, the cell actively secretes massive amounts of fresh tau into the surrounding space.
00:58This localized flood of new protein immediately spills over into the adjacent capillary,
01:04resulting in the measurable plasma spike seen in sleep-deprived patients.
01:08And as for that 24-hour all-nighter from the very beginning,
01:11just one full night of recovery sleep stops the flood entirely and completely clears out the excess tau.
