Clarifies the causes of hypersomnia

2012/11/29 Etxebeste Aduriz, Egoitz - Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Medikuntza
• Farmakologia
• Osasuna

Despite sleeping 10 hours a day, patients with hypersomnia have difficulty waking up and staying awake. Emory University researchers explain why this happens. Science Translational Medicine has published that patients produce a substance that acts as a sedative.

Hypersomnia has nothing to do with apnea or the improvised sleeping of the subjects of narcolepsy. People with hypersomnia need to sleep a lot and yet never stay fully awake. Even though they are physically awake, the sick claim not to be mentally that way and feel as if they were among bruises. So far they have been treated with stimulants or incentives, but they have little impact in most cases. “The situation is similar to trying to start a braked car,” says research lead researcher David Rye in Emory University’s press release, “we have to think that instead of continuing to the accelerator further, we have to release the brake.”

Analysis of samples of cerebrolar fluid from 32 patients has concluded that an unidentified substance affects the neurotransmitter GABA. Precisely, GABA slows down the activity of neurons. The incorporation into the laboratory cells of the patients' cerebrolar fluid has shown that the efficacy of GABA almost doubles. This same effect has benzodiazepine based sedatives, such as Valium.

Knowing the mechanism, a pilot session was held with seven patients, with the drug flumazenil acting against benzodiazepines, used for the treatment of sedative overdoses. And although it has not equally affected all patients, researchers say they have obtained quite good results. According to them, the next steps will be to identify the driving substance and conduct major clinical sessions with flumazenil.