Cha Ching

Hypocretin (orexin) cell transplantation diminishes narcoleptic-like sleep behavior in rats.

The sleep disorder narcolepsy is now considered a neurodegenerative disease because there is a massive loss of neurons containing the neuropeptide, hypocretin/orexin (HCRT), and because narcoleptic patients have very low cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) levels of HCRT. Studies in animal models of narcolepsy have shown the neurophysiological role of the HCRT system in the development of this disease. For example, the injection of the neurotoxin named hypocretin-2-saporin (HCRT2/SAP) into the lateral hypothalamus (LH) destroys the HCRT neurons, diminishes the contents of HCRT in the CSF and induces narcoleptic-like behaviour in rats. Transplants of various cell types have been used to induce recovery in a variety of neurodegenerative animal models. In models such as Parkinson disease, cell survival has been shown to be small but satisfactory. Similarly, cell transplantation could be employed to implant grafts of HCRT cells into the LH or even other brain regions to treat narcolepsy. Here, we reported for the first time that transplantation of HCRT neurons into the LH of HCRT2/SAP lesioned rats diminishes narcoleptic-like sleep behaviour. Therefore, cell transplantation may provide an effective method to increase HCRT production within the narcoleptic brain.

 Y'all can ignore me now.   Eat pastry and dream of your brain transplant...