Essay On Narcolepsy

According to Psychology textbook, by J. Noland and Saundra K. Ciccarelli, narcolepsy is defined as a sleep disorder in which a person falls immediately into REM sleep (a stage of sleep in which one’s eyes move rapidly under their eyelids and the person is typically experiencing a dream) during the day without warning. Narcolepsy affects one in every two thousand people and is known as a kind of “sleep seizure”. A person with narcolepsy, especially one that is experiencing strong emotions, may slip suddenly into REM sleep during anytime of the day (Noland & Ciccarelli, 2010). To understand the basics about narcolepsy, one must understand the cycles of so-called “normal sleep”. When one usually falls asleep, after about an hour and a half one enters REM sleep and then throughout the night one alternates between REM and non-REM sleep. For ones with narcolepsy, sleep begins immediately with REM sleep and

It has been recorded that most people with narcolepsy have low levels of a chemical called hypocretin. Hypocretin, also known as orexin, is the chemical in one’s body that helps regulate sleep and a chemical the body needs to stay awake. The deficiency in hypocretin is though by many to result from one’s immune system mistakenly attacking parts of the brain that produce this chemical (NHS, 2014). Researchers have also discovered abnormalities in various parts of the brain that are involved in regulating REM sleep and believe that these abnormalities contribute to symptom development (Web.MD) In addition there has been research that indicates a possible association of narcolepsy to exposure of H1N1 virus (swine flu) and a swine flue vaccine, which is currently given out in Europe. There is yet to be discovered if the virus directly triggers narcolepsy or whether exposure to the virus increases the likelihood that someone will have narcolepsy (Mayo Clinic Staff,