Loading...
Cataplexy is a condition in which brief episodes of muscle weakness occur, typically triggered by positive emotional events, such as joking or laughing. In patients with narcolepsy and cataplexy (NC), the cataplexy has long been assumed to represent the inappropriate intrusion of one element of REM sleep, namely atonia, into wakefulness. The curious fact that cataplexy (presumably generated by pontomedullary events) is typically triggered by emotionally laden experiences (presumably mediated by suprapontine regions) has remained enigmatic.
In this study, 12 patients with NC and 12 matched controls viewed sequences of humorous and neutral pictures. During the viewing, researchers used event-related functional MRI (E-RfMRI) to record activity …