Massaging Face Doesnt Drain Brain Toxins via Lymphatic Vessels

In 1786, Cruikshank published The Anatomy of the Absorbing Vessels of the Human Body, with updated illustrations of the lymphatic networks and a detailed mercury injection tracing of the lymphatic drainage of the human breast (Shields, 1994; Miller & Palmer, 1995; Ribatti & Crivellato, 2010; Loukas et al.

He demonstrated that lymphatic vessels could be subdivided into three types on the basis of morphology and molecular characteristics: lymphatic capillaries, pre‐collecting lymphatic vessels, and collecting lymphatic vessels. Lymphatic pre‐collectors drain into pre‐nodal collectors after deriving from the absorbing lymphatic network (Comparin & Bastianini, 1965).

Probing the human applicability of these findings, Absinta et al. visualized mLVs in humans and primates via gadobutrol-enhanced lymphatic imaging with T2-FLAIR and T1-weighted MRI, providing a noninvasive method for observing mLVs in humans.86 These investigations have culminated in detailed structural analyses exemplified by Ahn et al. who reported that mLVs at the skull base had larger diameters and abundant protruding primary lymphatic vessel branches with typical oak leaf-shaped (button-like) junctions and lymphatic valves and lacked smooth muscle coverage, thus structurally favoring CSF drainage.78 In 2017, Ma et al.

Together, these findings revealed a mixture of ageing-related changes in lymphatic networks that drain through scLV-1 and scLV-2 to submandibular lymph nodes. Most conspicuous was the reduction in nasal mucosal lymphatics. Although scLV-1 and scLV-2 manifested few ageing-related structural changes, responses of these vessels to nitric oxide were impaired in aged mice.

They found that the vessels contained specific cells and protein markers that are unique to lymphatic vessels and distinguished them from blood vessels. These findings suggest the lymphatic system is a common feature of mammalian brains.

Facial lymph nodes. Lymphatic drainage of the orbit and periocular adnexa occurs by way of the infraorbital, buccinator, and malar groups. Contributed by Ajay Nair Sharma

Cerebrospinal fluid and interstitial fluid are exchanged, and drained by the meningeal lymphatic vessels. While it was historically believed that both the brain and meninges were devoid of lymphatic vasculature, recent studies by Antoine Louveau and Jonathan Kipnis at the University of Virginia, submitted in October 2014, and by Aleksanteri Aspelund, Salli Antila and Kari Alitalo at the University of Helsinki submitted in December 2014, identified and described the basic biology of the meningeal lymphatics using a combination of histological, live-imaging, and genetic tools.

Albayram explained the observation, stating, “We saw a flow pattern that didn’t behave like blood moving through an artery; it was slower, more like drainage, showing that this vessel is part of the brain’s cleanup system.” · To verify that this slow-moving fluid was flowing through genuine lymphatic vessels, the team needed to examine the anatomy of the region at a microscopic level.

Initially, they were thought to get out of the skull following the cranial nerves, which were called perineural routes, including: along the olfactory nerve (near the cribriform plate), the trigeminal nerve and optic nerve (near the orbit), the facial nerve (through the stylomastoid foramina, SMF), as well as the glossopharyngeal, vagus, and accessory nerves (through the jugular foramen, JF) (6, 30). However, in 2019, Ji Hoon Ahn and colleagues discovered that MLVs remained intact after cranial nerve removal, suggesting that MLVs are not part of the perineuronal lymphatic system and may be simply concomitant with nerves (18). They observed basal MLVs draining CSF tracers from the petrosquamous fissure (PSF), JF, and SMF to periphery, connecting with extracranial lymphatics (lateral deep cervical lymph vessels, lateral dCLVs) and finally arriving to the dCLNs (Figure 1B) (18).