Where did Narcolepsy
Originate
Narcolepsy can be found in both men and women of any ages. However, the symptoms of narcolepsy
normally occur during the teenage years. In certain cases, it can also occur in adults and young children.
The specific characteristic of narcolepsy is there might be certain
years after the onset disease before it was diagnosed. There are no remedy or cure for narcolepsy which can
be deemed chronic and can last for a life time. Fortunately, narcolepsy sufferers can improve their condition
with special treatment combine with the therapy and medication.
Two main narcolepsy symptoms are abnormal pattern of rapid eye
movement sleep and extreme sleepiness during daytime. For those who suffer narcolepsy, the sleep cycles are
altered and it’s not normal. The rapid eye movement sleep appears after falling asleep, instead of the normal
period sleep. Some specific characteristics causes by rapid eye movement sleep are hallucinations, cataplexy
and sleep paralysis.
After extensive research on narcolepsy, it was found that narcolepsy
was actually originated by the brain cells that are lack of hypocretin. There were also searches for defects
in the genes and brains of narcolepsy patients at were found that narcolepsy is also originated by relatives
like parents or sister that also suffer narcolepsy.
It has been found that small peptide or protein which is usually
present in the brains of people without narcolepsy was almost absent in people with narcolepsy. This was
found by the research that being done on dogs with narcolepsy and problem with the hypocretin gene. From the
narcolepsy patient, it showed that almost narcoleptics have no hypocretin in the spinal
fluid.
Researchers also think that narcolepsy is originated from the lack of
peptide in narcoleptics' brain. Now, what scientist and researcher have to do is to work really hard to
develop types of drug that might go through the brain to replace the peptide. They have to develop the right
kind of drug as the number of neurons that contain hypocretin found in narcoleptic’s brain were almost 85% to
95% less that people without narcolepsy.
Those entire discovery about the cell loss in narcoleptic’s brain were
just like the first chapter in research about narcolepsy. There is more research to be conducted in order to
get more information about where the narcolepsy really originates from. Looking forward, attention must be
altered to make use of the knowledge and information that were gathered during the research. This is to
develop much better and improved method for effective treatments for narcolepsy. For future research, they
are trying to determine what really cost the cell to be loss in the brain of narcoleptics and to do some
testing in drugs that can replace the hypocratin.
So, when researchers already know where narcolepsy actually
originates, it actually really help and it’s easier for them to extend their research in term of finding the
cure for narcolepsy in the future.
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