Progress on narcolepsy and anxiety

Abstract

Narcolepsy is a rare sleep disorder characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS), cataplexy, sleep hallucination and sleep paralysis, and the vast majority of patients are accompanied by anxiety. There are neuronal interconnections and projections between the neural circuits of narcolepsy and anxiety, which may share common pathophysiology mechanisms, and some medications used clinically to treat cataplexy in narcolepsy may also improve anxiety. In this study, we propose to review the epidemiologic research, pathogenesis and therapeutic advances in narcolepsy with anxiety, with the aim of increasing the diagnosis and treatment of narcolepsy with anxiety and improving the prognosis of narcolepsy with anxiety patients.

DOI: 10.3969/j.issn.1672⁃6731.2023.08.005