Narcolepsy-Cataplexy in the rats

In humans, narcolepsy is a debilitating and important sleep disorder that was first described in 1877 by Westphal, a German physician, based on his observation of a patient with sudden sleep attacks associated with symptoms of motor incapacity and aphasia. He considered it a form of epilepsy. Three years later, the French neurologist Gélineau (Fig. 24.1) described the disorder for the first time as a distinct clinical entity rather than a symptom of another condition, and proposed the term narcolepsy, meaning “sleep seizure”. In the 1880 paper, Gélineau described a patient who, from the age of 36, began to fall asleep suddenly during the day and had sudden falls or “astasia” (cataplexy), which occurred whenever he became emotional.