The Unknown, Known

lymphatic vessel in blue, immune cells in red                  University of Virginia

You'd think, with all the studies and scans and experiments, we'd know everything there was to know about the brain, physically anyway. But no! This finding is amazing and could have profound effects on how we think of and treat neurological diseases ~ and it necessitates an updating of our anatomy books. A new technique allowing researchers to look at the entire meninges (or covering of the brain) showed that there are lymphatic vessels in the brain, something that had not been known. Immune cells move though the lymphatic system to fight infection and disease throughout the body, and now we know that they reach the brain, too (story, link to audio version): http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-07-04/scientists-have-discovered-missing-link-between-brain-and-immune-system