Evaluate One or More Explanations for Sleep Disorders.

Evaluate one or more explanations for snooze disorders. (16 marks)

For narcolepsy in that location are three explanations for its existence, regarding REM sleep, HLA molecules and hypocretin. One of the major symptoms of narcolepsy is the bolshie of muscle tone, or cataplexy, which is similar to what happens during REM sleep. Also, narcoleptics often baffle hallucinations during the daytime, which are intrusions of REM- instance sleep and they have abnormal REM sleep on the whole. Therefore, in the 1960s an explanation emerged suggesting that narcolepsy was caused by a malfunction in the system that regulates REM sleep.

This explanation was okay up by a poll done by Vogel who observed REM sleep at the onset of narcoleptic patients, whereas it ordinarily occurs later on in the first beat of sleep stages. This was further supported by recordings of neuron natural action in the brains of narcoleptic dogs. This showed that cataplexy co-occurred with brain cell activity that usually only(prenominal) occurs in REM sleep (Siegel). The main offspring with this last finding is that it cannot be generalised to humans, as the study took place in dogs who have a different habitus to us. Despite this enquiry that backs up the explanation, on the whole the research has failed to be convincing.





Another explanation for narcolepsy came in the 1980s, when research pointed in a new direction which suggested that narcolepsy was linked to a genetic mutation of the immune system. Honda et al. found an increased frequency of one type of HLA in narcoleptic patients. HLA molecules are found on the rebel of white blood cells and coordinate the immune response. More new-fangled research has also found that more than 90% of pot suffering from narcolepsy with cataplexy have the HLA variant HLA-DQB1*0602. However this variant is not found in all narcoleptics, and is also reasonably greenness in the general population (Mignot et al.). This means that HLA cannot be the only cause of narcolepsy. This theory can be seen as...If you want to create a full essay, order it on our website: Orderessay



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