Abstract
Everyone with narcolepsy has some degree of daytime sleepiness, and for most, sleepiness is the symptom of greatest concern. This chronic sleepiness is often severe and can substantially impair relationships, the ability to drive safely, and performance at school and work. Although it is now clear that narcolepsy with cataplexy is caused by an extensive and selective loss of the orexin/hypocretin-producing neurons, remarkably little is known about how this results in chronic sleepiness.
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Acknowledgments
We appreciate the thoughtful comments on this text by A. Lim, and the generosity of T. Mochizuki in sharing preliminary data. Writing of this chapter was in part supported by the National Institutes of Health Grant NS055367 to T.E.S.
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Scammell, T.E., Alexandre, C. (2011). The Neural Basis of Sleepiness in Narcoleptic Mice. In: Baumann, C., Bassetti, C., Scammell, T. (eds) Narcolepsy. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-8390-9_15
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