Daytime tiredness or sleepiness and deficits in cognitive performance are common complaints in sleep disordered patients. Till now there are few studies comparing patients from different diagnostic groups of sleep disorders in the same experimental protocol. We studied the time course of cognitive functions and subjective alertness in a parallel group design with four groups of patients [narcol...

Until recently, olfactory dysfunction was an unknown feature of narcolepsy. Orexin A, also called hypocretin-1, is abnormally decreased or undetectable in the cerebrospinal fluid of narcoleptic patients with cataplexies. As hypothalamic orexin-containing neurons project throughout the entire olfactory pathway, from the olfactory mucosa to the olfactory cortex, disturbed orexinergic transmission...

Amphetamine-like stimulants are commonly used to treat sleepiness in narcolepsy. These compounds have little effect on rapid eye movement (REM) sleep-related symptoms such as cataplexy, and antidepressants (monoamine uptake inhibitors) are usually required to treat these symptoms. Although amphetamine-like stimulants and antidepressants enhance monoaminergic transmission, these compounds are no...

Narcolepsy has been hypothesized to be a disease of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. According to this hypothesis, cataplexy is a result of the triggering during waking of the mechanism that normally serves to suppress muscle tone in REM sleep. REM sleep control mechanisms have been localized to the pons. Narcoleptic dogs have increased numbers of cholinergic receptors in the medial pons. These ...

UNLABELLED Narcolepsy is characterized by excessive daytime sleep and cataplexy. Little is known about the possible difference in pathophysiology between patients with or without cataplexy. OBJECTIVE To quantify T CD4, T CD8 and B lymphocytes in subgroups of patients with narcolepsy and the presence or absence of the HLA-DQB1*0602 allele between groups. METHOD Our study was prospective and ...

propofol and remifentanil has been reported to be successfully used in a patient with narcolepsy who underwent cardiac surgery [6]. The authors of that report considered that perioperative monitoring of the patient’s hypnotic state would have added valuable information, but this kind of monitor was not available in their department [6]. There are limited data about inhalational anaesthesia in n...