No closer to coming up with a cure for the sleeplessness, the Hub doctors figured out a way to buy themselves some time with a special cocktail of "anti-inflammatories, stimulants, [and] other things," injected straight into the carotid artery in the neck in order to deliver it to the brain faster. One doctor says this injection "reduces the beta-amyloid," which is a protein fragment that some scientists suspect builds up in the brains of Alzheimer's patients, inhibiting the brain's function.
With everyone's glymphatic system malfunctioning, it appears that the Hub scientists hypothesized that beta-amyloid was building up in people's brains, contributing to cognitive processing deficits. The cocktail couldn't fix the problem, but it could stimulate their brains, reduce the inflammation caused by the beta-amyloid, and restore a little bit of their alertness and ability to concentrate. Since they were racing against the clock for a cure, every minute they could postpone the inevitable increased their odds of success. Sadly, Dr. Murphy and her team were still unsuccessful in finding a cure, but it wasn't for lack of trying.
