Will the discovery of hypocretin deficiency in narcolepsy ever bring new treatments for patients?
The answer is most probably yes, but is it difficult to tell when. The current treatments available, antidepressants, GHB and stimulants including modafinil do not act directly on the hypocretin system. Rather, they act on a group of molecules called monoamines (especially dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine). These treatments correct the symptoms rather than the cause of the problem. Now that we know that having no hypocretin is what is causing narcolepsy in most patients, replacing the missing molecule is probably going to be the best treatment. Unfortunately however, hypocretins probably cannot be given by mouth or injected in the blood. Hypocretins are unstable and would be broken down before reaching the brain to do its job. Very high doses maybe effective but its should first be tried animal models (e.g. mouse without the hypocretin gene, unavailable to us). Most likely, this would not work well and be too expensive anyway. A probably better option will be to create an artific
