Preserved human brains have recently
revealed the cause of narcolepsy to California researchers at UCLA and
Stanford University. Narcolepsy is a serious and sometimes dangerous
sleep disorder that causes some people to fall asleep without warning.
The brains used in the study came from
victims of narcolepsy. Before death, they donated their bodies to
science. After death, researchers removed their brains and preserved them
(that is, mummified them in some type of solution) to use for research.
Scientists then studied brain cells from
the narcoleptic brains and compared them to cells from preserved brains of
people who did not have the disease. They discovered that narcoleptics
were missing special cells (that secrete orexin, a sleep-inducing hormone)
from an area of the brain called the hypothalamus. They speculate that
these cells may have been destroyed by some type of toxin or perhaps an
autoimmune disorder.
