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A (delayed) history of the brain lymphatic system

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It has been only recently that scientists come to realize the existence of a lymphatic system within the central nervous system. However, an Italian anatomist had already found and described the system in fine detail over 200 years ago.

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Fig. 1: Portrait of Paolo Mascagni by S. Ricci; stipple engraving by G. Buccinelli after R. Focosi after S. Ricci.
Fig. 2: Figure from the Vasorum Lymphaticorum Corporis Humani Historia et Ichnographia (1787).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Computational, Cognitive & Clinical Neuroimaging Laboratory (C3NL), Division of Brain Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom

    Stefano Sandrone

  2. Universidad Católica de Santiago de Guayaquil, Guayaquil, Ecuador

    Daniel Moreno-Zambrano

  3. Center for Brain Immunology and Glia (BIG), Department of Neuroscience, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Jonathan Kipnis

  4. University of Utrecht, Utrecht, the Netherlands

    Jan van Gijn

Authors
  1. Stefano Sandrone
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  2. Daniel Moreno-Zambrano
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  3. Jonathan Kipnis
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  4. Jan van Gijn
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Correspondence to Stefano Sandrone.

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Competing interests

S.S. receives royalties from Oxford University Press (United States) for Brain Renaissance (2015). J.K. is a scientific co-founder and a scientific board member of Ariya Therapeutics, Inc. (PureTech Health).

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Sandrone, S., Moreno-Zambrano, D., Kipnis, J. et al. A (delayed) history of the brain lymphatic system. Nat Med 25, 538–540 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-019-0417-3

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