A recent study rocked the neuroscience world by demonstrating what in retrospect seems obvious: the brain has its own lymphatic system to help remove waste. A new study, from the laboratory of Elizabeth Engle, MD, at Boston Children’s Hospital, sheds light on another critical, little-studied part of the brain’s drainage system: the dural cerebral veins that remove and reabsorb excess cerebrospinal fluid.

The story of these vessels, the cover article in the next Developmental Cell, is a great example of lab scientists and physicians joining to make fundamental discoveries in biology. Strangely, critical clues come from children with craniosynostosis, a congenital malformation in which the skull plates fuse together too early in prenatal development, resulting in abnormal head shapes and, often, neurologic complications. …