UF Health Study Alters Dogma on Cerebrospinal Fluid

While studying blood stem cells, Edward W. Scott, Ph.D., a professor of molecular genetics and microbiology, discovered something that may change the way scientists understand how cerebrospinal fluid, or CSF, functions in the nervous system.

For 150 years, it has been believed that cerebrospinal fluid — like its name — only circulated in the central nervous system of the brain and spinal cord. Now, after testing his theory in mouse models, Scott and his team confirmed their key finding: cerebral spinal fluid flows all the way from the brain’s spinal cord to the peripheral nervous system. The study was published in Science Advances on Wednesday.

“This breaks one of the oldest standing dogmas in neuroscience,” Scott said. “I chalk it up to just paying attention to the things that don’t go the way you expect them to, and then trying to track down what was misunderstood in the first place. It’s where most of the discoveries in my career have come from.”

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