Sleeping Disorder Narcolepsy And Immune System

Narcolepsy is a neurological disorder triggered by the brain’s failure to normalize sleep-wake cycles. It causes excessive daytime sleep and cataplexy. It is often related to unexpected sleep attacks where people tend to doze off for a minute or two suddenly.  Insomnia, hallucinations and sleep-paralysis are some of the other symptoms of narcolepsy.

Cataplexy is type 1 narcolepsy. In which a patient suffers from sudden bouts of muscle weakness. According to the U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, catalepsy is the most common symptom of narcolepsy, and affects more than 3,000 people in the U.S. alone.

According to the latest research at Stanford University School of Medicine, narcolepsy has been suspected of being an autoimmune disease. It indicates that narcolepsy is caused by a misguided immune attack. Although, this has been long suspected but never proven with facts.Fortunately, research has laid out the possibility of a treatment focusing on the immune system that could be used against the disease.

Research shows that people who have decreased levels of hypocretin or orexin, which is a brain chemical that helps in staying awake, is the probable cause of narcolepsy. Experts believe that the cause of this deficiency is probably caused by an abnormal immune system that attacks on the brain cells that produce hypocretin.

The researchers found that narcolepsy patients have blood T cells that react to a particular hyprocretin protein. T cells are a key part of immune system defenses against infection. It might be possible to treat narcolepsy with an immune-suppressing therapy.

Bentham Science Publishers is one of the leading STM publishers in the world. It has a wealth of online journals and eBooks in the fields of pharmaceutical, biomedical, medical, and engineering, technology, computer, psychology and the like. One of its subscription based journal is “CNS & Neurological Disorders - Drug Targets”. The journal has a number of different articles, including “The Hypocretins and their Role in Narcolepsy”.