Narcolepsy-cataplexy is a neurological disorder associated with the inability to maintain wakefulness and abnormal intrusions of rapid eye movement sleep-related phenomena into wakefulness such as cataplexy. The vast majority of narcoleptic-cataplectic individuals have low or undetectable levels of orexin (hypocretin) neuropeptides in the cerebrospinal fluid, likely due to specific loss of the ...

OBJECTIVE To investigate gray matter concentration changes in the brains of narcoleptic patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS Twenty-nine narcoleptic patient with cataplexy and 29 age and sex-matched normal subjects (mean age, 31 years old) underwent volumetric MRIs. The MRIs were spatially normalized to a standard T1 template and subdivided into gray matter, white matter, and cerebrospinal fluid (...

Loss of hypocretin cells or mutation of hypocretin receptors causes narcolepsy. In canine genetic narcolepsy, produced by a mutation of the Hcrtr2 gene, symptoms develop postnatally with symptom onset at 4 weeks of age and maximal symptom severity by 10-32 weeks of age. Canine narcolepsy can readily be quantified. The large size of the dog cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) cerebellomedullary cistern al...

Narcolepsy is a sleep disorder caused by impaired hypocretin (orexin) neurotransmission. Growth hormone (GH) secretion may be altered in narcolepsy for various reasons. Slow wave sleep episodes, which are closely associated with GH secretory events, are more randomly dispersed over 24 hours in narcoleptics. Furthermore, hypocretins may inhibit pituitary GH release. We assessed the function of t...

Thai Sudden Unexplained Death Syndrome (Thai SUDS), or Lai-Tai, is a major health problem among rural residents of northeastern Thailand. The cause has been identified as a genetic disease. SUDS, a disorder found in Southeast Asia, is characterized by an abnormal electrocardiogram with ST-segment elevation in leads V1-V3, identical to that seen in Brugada Syndrome (Brugada Sign, BS) and sudden ...

Sleep is important and required for the survival and normal homeostasis of vertebrates. Disturbances in the sleep-wake cycle can lead to many sleep disorders, one of which is narcolepsy. Narcolepsy is a disabling sleep disorder characterized by excessive daytime sleep, cataplexy (sudden loss of muscle tone in response to strong emotion or laughter), hallucinations, and sleep paralysis. To date,...

Introduction. A lack of documentation of stimulant use during pregnancy means that doctors have difficulty advising narcoleptic and hypersomnolent patients. Objectives. To investigate the use of stimulant therapy in narcoleptic and hypersomnolent patients during pregnancy. Method. A search of clinic letters at a tertiary sleep clinic identified women who became pregnant whilst receiving stimula...

Human narcolepsy-cataplexy, a sleep disorder associated with a centrally mediated hypocretin (orexin) deficiency, is tightly associated with HLA-DQB1*0602. Few studies have investigated the influence that additional HLA class II alleles have on susceptibility to this disease. In this work, 1,087 control subjects and 420 narcoleptic subjects with cataplexy, from three ethnic groups, were HLA typ...

Narcolepsy is a sleep disorder caused by impaired hypocretin (orexin) neurotransmission. Growth hormone (GH) secretion may be altered in narcolepsy for various reasons. Slow-wave sleep episodes, which are closely associated with GH-secretory events, are more randomly dispersed over 24 h in narcoleptics. Furthermore, hypocretins may inhibit pituitary GH release. We assessed the function of the s...

767 ANTI–MA2-ASSOCIATED ENCEPHALITIS IS AN AUTOIMMUNE PARANEOPLASTIC DISORDER USUALLY ASSOCIATED WITH TESTICULAR CANCER. PATIENTS PRESENT with symptoms of brainstem, limbic, and hypothalamic impairment, such as eye movement abnormalities, memory loss, and endocrine dysfunction.1 In addition, some patients may develop narcoleptic features such as hypersomnia and cataplexy due to hypocretin-1 def...