Authors: Fang Han
Publish Date: 2011/02/12
Volume: 16, Issue: 1, Pages: 241-245
Abstract
Narcolepsy is a debilitating sleep disorder characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness cataplexy and intrusive REM sleep Deficits in endogenous orexins are a major pathogenic component of the disease This disorder is also associated with the gene marker HLADQB10602 An increased prevalence of sleep apnea in narcolepsy suggested interactions among ventilatory chemosensitivity narcolepsycataplexy and sleep apneaEvidence from animal studies using orexin knockout mice and focal microdialysis of an orexin receptor antagonist demostrated that orexins are also contributed to respiratory regulation in a vigilance statedependent manner as animals with orexins dysregulation have attenuated hypercapnic ventilatory responses predominately in wakefulness which is consistent with the notion that the activity of orexinergic neurons is higher during wake than sleep periods Human model of hypocretin deficiency is patients with narcolepsycataplexy In contrast to findings suggested by animal studies we found significant decrease in hypoxic responsiveness but not in hypercapnic responsiveness in narcoleptics and further analysis indicated that decreased ventilatory responses to hypoxia in human narcolepsycataplexy is in relation to HLADQB10602 status not hypocretin deficiency
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