Abstract
Insomnia is the most common sleep complaint. Insomnia is not a disease itself but mostly a clinical sign of an underlying disease. Degenerative and vascular diseases involving the central nervous system (CNS) may impair sleep either as a result of the brain lesion or because of illness-related discomfort (motor immobility, social and familial impairment, depression, drugs). Some neurological conditions characterized by movement disorders that start or persist during sleep hinder sleep onset and/or sleep continuity, causing a poor sleep complaint. CNS lesions and/or dysfunction in three specific neurological conditions (fatal familial insomnia, Morvan's chorea, and delirium tremens) impair the basic mechanisms of sleep generation inducing a syndrome in which the inability to sleep is consistently associated with motor and sympathergic overactivation. Agrypnia excitata is the term that aptly defines this generalized overactivation syndrome.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 81-89 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Seminars in Neurology |
Volume | 25 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Mar 2005 |
Keywords
- Agrypnia excitata
- Degenerative diseases
- Fatal familial insomnia
- Insomnia
- Movement disorders
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Clinical Neurology
- Neuroscience(all)