CSF Hypocretin-1 Levels and Clinical Profiles in Narcolepsy and Idiopathic CNS Hypersomnia in Norway

Overview

Journal Sleep

Publisher Oxford University Press

Specialty Psychiatry

Date 2007 Aug 19

PMID 17702265

Citations 21

Authors

Mona Skard Heier

Tatiana Evsiukova

Steinar Vilming

Michaela D Gjerstad

Harald Schrader

Kaare Gautvik

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the relationship between CSF hypocretin-1 levels and clinical profiles in narcolepsy and CNS hypersomnia in Norwegian patients.

Method: CSF hypocretin-1 was measured by a sensitive radioimmunoassay in 47 patients with narcolepsy with cataplexy, 7 with narcolepsy without cataplexy, 10 with idiopathic CNS hypersomnia, and a control group.

Results: Low hypocretin-1 values were found in 72% of the HLA DQB1*0602 positive patients with narcolepsy and cataplexy. Patients with low CSF hypocretin-1 levels reported more extensive muscular involvement during cataplectic attacks than patients with normal levels. Hypnagogic hallucinations and sleep paralysis occurred more frequently in patients with cataplexy than in the other patient groups, but with no correlation to hypocretin-1 levels.

Conclusion: About three quarters of the HLA DQB1*0602 positive patients with narcolepsy and cataplexy had low CSF hypocretin-1 values, and appear to form a distinct clinical entity. Narcolepsy without cataplexy could not be distinguished from idiopathic CNS hypersomnia by clinical symptoms or biochemical findings.

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