Researchers discover link between Parkinson’s and narcolepsy
Parkinson’s disease is often preceded and accompanied by daytime sleep attacks, nocturnal insomnia, REM sleep disorder, hallucinations and depression. All of these symptoms are also present in narcolepsy.
In a study, reported in the June issue of the journal Brain, researchers examined 16 human brains from cadavers – five from normal adults and 11 in various stages of Parkinson’s – and found an increasing loss of hypocretin cells (Hcrt) with disease progression.
The later stages of Parkinson’s were “characterised by a massive loss of the Hcrt neurons. That leads us to believe the loss of Hcrt cells may be a cause of the narcolepsy-like symptoms of Parkinson’s and may be ameliorated by treatments aimed at reversing the Hcrt deficit,” the researchers reported.
