Claudio L. A. Bassetti, Antoine Adamantidis, Denis Burdakov, Fang Han, Steffen Gay, Ulf Kallweit, Ramin Khatami, Frits Koning, Brigitte R. Kornum, Gert Jan Lammers, Roland S. Liblau, Pierre H. Luppi, Geert Mayer, Thomas Pollmächer, Takeshi Sakurai, Federica Sallusto, Thomas E. Scammell, Mehdi Tafti & Yves Dauvilliers
Narcolepsy is a rare brain disorder that reflects a selective loss or dysfunction of orexin (also known as hypocretin) neurons of the lateral hypothalamus. Narcolepsy type 1 (NT1) is characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness and cataplexy, accompanied by sleep–wake symptoms, such as hallucinations, sleep paralysis and disturbed sleep. Diagnosis is based on these clinical features and supported by biomarkers: evidence of rapid eye movement sleep periods soon after sleep onset; cerebrospinal fluid orexin deficiency; and positivity for HLA-DQB1*06:02. Symptomatic treatment with stimulant and anticataplectic drugs is usually efficacious.