Abstract
Hypocretins participate in the regulation of sleep and wakefulness in narcolepsy and play an unclear role in other disorders. Properties of hypocretins (orexins) and their interactions will provide promising methods for studies of other systems and circadian rhythm regulation, for which sleep is the quintessential marker. Findings of diminished hypocretin function in narcolepsy will help explain the neurochemistry of daytime somnolence, sleep paralysis, hypnogogic hallucinations, and cataplexy. Studies of hypocretin interactions with other transmitter systems will allow an extension of the narcolepsy findings to our understanding of the neurochemistry of other disorders that cause similar symptoms. This will require the mapping of specific hypocretin-related symptoms to interactions with other homeostatic transmitter systems in the brainstem and basal ganglia, interactions that will be analyzable in a time-sensitive context since hypocretin is released in a circadian rhythm from a small cluster of neurons. Hypocretins are synthesized in a circumscribed set of neuronal cell somas in the posterior hypothalamus, transported along the axon, and released under central control across widely distributed terminals. This contrasts with most other central nervous system (CNS) transmitter substances, which are either synthesized in the terminals or in multiregional, dispersed cell somas, and whose release cannot be synchronized or coordinated by activity of a central nucleus.
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© 2006 Humana Press Inc., Totowa, NJ
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Salomon, R.M. (2006). Hypocretin Measures in Psychiatric Disorders. In: Nishino, S., Sakurai, T. (eds) The Orexin/Hypocretin System. Contemporary Clinical Neuroscience. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1385/1-59259-950-8:317
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1385/1-59259-950-8:317
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