When Was Narcolepsy Discovered

When was narcolepsy discovered? Narcolepsy is a neurological disorder that causes overwhelming daytime drowsiness and sleep attacks. There is no known cute for narcolepsy, though there are a range of treatments.

Narcoleptics can fall asleep anytime, anywhere.

When Was Narcolepsy Discovered?

Like many other neurological disorders, there is no exact date when narcolepsy was discovered. Doctors discovered the fundamentals of the condition over a period of many years, and scientists are still learning new information about narcolepsy to this day.

Westphal and Fisher

In the 1870s, two German doctors, Westphal and Fisher, first described the symptoms of what would soon after be named narcolepsy. They noticed a set of circumstances in which their patients would unexpectedly fall asleep at random times throughout the day. These patients also experienced other symptoms such as dream-like hallucinations while they were awake, as well as “automatic behavior,” which caused them to perform daily tasks while they were still asleep.

Gélineau

Narcolepsy was recognized as a clinical disorder in 1880 by a French doctor named Gélineau. To get the French name narcolepsie, he combined two Greek words: narke, meaning numbness, and lepsis, meaning attack. The disorder is aptly named as suffers experience “sleep attacks” following intense emotional experiences, such as laughing and screaming.

While he coined the term narcolepsy, Gélineau failed to differentiate between actual sleep attacks and the muscle weakness that causes patients to stumble or collapse, instead suggesting a common physiological trigger for both symptoms.

Loëwenfeld

In 1902, a doctor named Loëwenfeld was the first physician to separate the pathology of muscle weakness and sleep attacks. He named this muscle weakness cataplexy.

Knecht and Mitler

Canine narcolepsy was discovered by Drs. Knecht and Mitler in 1973, which eventually led to the first documented genetic transmission of the disorder. This breakthrough quickly led to the isolation of a potential genetic cause for narcolepsy, an avenue of research that scientists are still exploring.

Treatments

Early treatments for narcolepsy were intimidating, to say the least. Patients endured a host of experimental procedures, such as X-ray irradiation, injecting air into the spinal cord, and the draining of cerebrospinal fluid.

Stimulants have played a key role in treating narcolepsy since the 1920s. Plant-based ephedrine was used to control episodes until amphetamines were developed in the 1930s by Drs. Bloomberg and Prinzmetal. In the 1960s, methylphenidate, or Ritalin, was discovered by Drs. Daily and Yoss. Soon after, three doctors in Japan developed imipramine, a tricyclic antidepressant that is still used for treating narcolepsy today. These days, patients often follow a treatment course that pairs both stimulants and antidepressants to counteract the effects of muscle weakness and sleep attacks.

Recent Narcolepsy Research

Still want to know more about when was narcolepsy discovered? Keep in mind that we learn more about this sleep disorder every day. The medical community still doesn’t know exactly what causes narcolepsy to develop, and is hard at work trying to solve the mystery.

Here are a few recent narcolepsy-based studies:

• A possible link between narcolepsy and Parkinson’s disease – These two neurological disorders share some common traits that may shed light on both of them.
• Potential risk for narcoleptics who smoke – Since narcoleptics fall asleep without notice, they have an increased risk of injury and death by burning.
• Changes in body temperature can affect narcoleptic sleepiness – Direct manipulation of skin temperature in narcoleptics can affect levels of vigilance and sleepiness.
• Can narcolepsy by caused by environmental factors? – If a person is genetically predisposed, narcolepsy may be caused by environmental exposures long before the disorder becomes apparent.
• Narcoleptics more likely to develop an eating disorder – Narcoleptics have been linked to symptoms of eating disorders.

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