(Medical Xpress)—What makes us happy? Family? Money? Love? How about a peptide? The neurochemical changes underlying human emotions and social behavior are largely unknown. Now though, for the first time in humans, scientists ...
Mar 7, 2013
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We laugh when we see Homer Simpson falling asleep while driving, while in church, and even while operating the Springfield nuclear reactor. In reality though, narcolepsy, cataplexy and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior ...
Jan 14, 2021
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Researchers from the University of Copenhagen have discovered autoreactive cells in persons suffering from narcolepsy. This is a new, important proof that the sleep disorder is an autoimmune disease. This knowledge may lead ...
Mar 18, 2019
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Two discoveries—one in the brains of people with heroin addiction and the other in the brains of sleepy mice—shed light on chemical messengers in the brain that regulate sleep and addiction, UCLA researchers say.
Jun 27, 2018
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Narcolepsy is a disorder caused by losing orexin neurons, marked by excessive daytime sleepiness and cataplexy, and sudden weakening of muscle control. Previously, we found two kinds of neurons preventing narcolepsy by receiving ...
May 15, 2017
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An international team of researchers has found some of the first solid evidence that narcolepsy may be a so-called "hit-and-run" autoimmune disease.
Jul 1, 2015
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(HealthDay)—A new study has uncovered evidence that most cases of narcolepsy are caused by a misguided immune system attack—something that has been long suspected but unproven.
Dec 18, 2013
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A swine flu vaccine used in 2009-10 is linked to a higher risk of the sleeping disorder narcolepsy in children and teens in Sweden and Finland, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said Friday.
Sep 21, 2012
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(Medical Xpress) -- A new study has found that protein and not sugar activates the cells responsible for keeping us awake and burning calories. The research, published in the 17 November issue of the scientific journal Neuron, ...
Nov 16, 2011
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The onset of narcolepsy appears to follow seasonal patterns of H1N1 and other upper airway infections, according to a new study of patients in China that was led by Stanford University School of Medicine narcolepsy expert ...
Aug 22, 2011
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Narcolepsy is a chronic sleep disorder, or dyssomnia, characterized by an excessive urge to sleep at inappropriate times, such as while at work. People with narcolepsy often experience disturbed nocturnal sleep and an abnormal daytime sleep pattern, which often is confused with insomnia. Narcoleptics, when falling asleep, generally experience the REM stage of sleep within 10 minutes; whereas most people do not experience REM sleep until an hour or so later.
Another one of the many problems that some narcoleptics experience is cataplexy, a sudden muscular weakness brought on by strong emotions (though many people experience cataplexy without having an emotional trigger). It often manifests as muscular weaknesses ranging from a barely perceptible slackening of the facial muscles to the dropping of the jaw or head, weakness at the knees, or a total collapse. Usually speech is slurred and vision is impaired (double vision, inability to focus), but hearing and awareness remain normal. In some rare cases, an individual's body becomes paralyzed and muscles become stiff.
Narcolepsy is a neurological sleep disorder. It is not caused by mental illness or psychological problems. It is most likely affected by a number of genetic abnormalities that affect specific biologic factors in the brain, combined with an environmental trigger during the brain's development, such as a virus.
The term narcolepsy derives from the French word narcolepsie created by the French physician Jean-Baptiste-Édouard Gélineau by combining the Greek νάρκη (narkē, "numbness" or "stupor"), and λῆψις (lepsis), "attack" or "seizure".
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
