Grant Proposal Background Souces

Background

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Background

This section is aimed at disclosing the research-based grounds of selected problem matter. As mentioned earlier, narcolepsy is an umbrella disorder encapsulating various emotional, neurological, psychological and social etiologies, symptoms and ramifications. Contemplating through the lens of preexisting literature, it can be claimed that substantial consideration has been put forward by the researchers to estimate the etiologies and associated attitudinal, affective and behavioral alterations of narcolepsy. A research study (Khan & Merchant, 2017) attempted to explore the possible association between physiological condition—brain tumor—and narcolepsy and found that most of the cancer survivors reported excessive daytime sleepiness—the prominent hallmark of narcolepsy. Moreover, narcolepsy symptoms are associated with the out-of-proportion activation of regulatory and global T-cells that are responsible for the elimination of autoimmune process and maintaining tolerance for self-antigens (Lecendreux et. al., 2017). Various personal, lifestyle and psychological factors such as depression, insomnia, lower coffee consumption, tiredness smoking, chronic pain and young age act as some independent risk factors of narcolepsy (Jaussent et. al., 2017). Besides this, genetics also play irrefutable role in the development of narcolepsy; its pathophysiology is associated with the abnormally decreased signaling of hypocretin-producing brain cells that can be inspected perpetuating within the families (Abad & Guilleminault, 2018; Miyagawa & Tokunaga, 2019). Interestingly, various emotional responses can act as a trigger for narcolepsy such as anger, resentment, a joke, shock, laugh or pleasant surprise might activate the onset of cataplexy attack which is a prominent co-morbid condition of narcolepsy (Schippa et. al., 2018). Hence, it can be concluded that a bulk of literature confirms the possibility of various personal, neurological, psychological, genetic and emotional factors that not only contribute to the development of such unwanted plight but also run co-morbid with it. This study is intended to explore the similar findings in context with the youngsters’ perspective.

References

Khan, B. R. & Merchant, T. E. (2017). OS02.6 risk factors for hypersomnia and narcolepsy and response to therapy in survivors of childhood brain tumors. Neuro-Oncology, 19(3), 1-3, doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/neuonc/nox036.012

Lecendreux, M., Churlaud, G., Pitoiset, F., Regnault, A., Tran, T. A., Liblau, R. et al. (2017) Narcolepsy Type 1 Is Associated with a Systemic Increase and Activation of Regulatory T Cells and with a Systemic Activation of Global T Cells. PLoS ONE, 12(1), e0169836. doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0169836

Jaussent I., Morin C. M., Ivers, H. & Dauvilliers, Y. (2017). Incidence, worsening and risk factors of daytime sleepiness in a population-based 5-year longitudinal study. Scientific Reports, 7(1372). Retrieved from https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-01547-0

Abad, V. C. & Guilleminault, C. ( 2018). New developments in the management of narcolepsy. Nat Sci Sleep., 9, 39–57. doi: 10.2147/NSS.S103467

Miyagawa, T. & Tokunaga, K. (2019). Genetics of narcolepsy. Human Genome Variation, 6(4). Retrieved from https://www.nature.com/articles/s41439-018-0033-7

Schiappa, C., Scarpelli, S., D’Atri, A., Gorgoni, M., & Gennaro L. D. (2018). Narcolepsy and emotional experience: a review of the literature. Behav Brain Funct, 14(19). doi: 10.1186/s12993-018-0151-x