sodium-oxybate and Sleep-Disorders--Circadian-Rhythm

Clinical aspects of the "night eating syndrome" (NES) are described. Recent studies, also referred to in the present report, have revealed certain triggering factors of this syndrome, but do not reveal the nature of the relationship between awakening and compulsory need for food. According to the psychodynamic interpretation, these subjects eat at night to replace dreaming, to which they offer strong resistance, whilst according to the psychobiological interpretation, motivational stimuli develop the irresistible and repeated desire for food. Within a post-rational cognitive theoretical model, the compulsion to food would be the mode through which subjects obtain a modified conscious state necessary to appease the suffering due to an experience of emptiness and incapacity. Psychological support associated with pharmacological treatment (benzodiazepine, gamma-hydroxybutyric acid) has been shown, in a personal series, to be effective both upon the sleep disorder and craving.

Topics: Adult; Aged; Anxiety; Compulsive Behavior; Drug Therapy, Combination; Feeding and Eating Disorders; Female; Humans; Male; Motivation; Oxazepam; Psychological Theory; Psychotherapy; Sleep Disorders, Circadian Rhythm; Sodium Oxybate; Treatment Outcome

We present the effect of exogenous sodium oxybate (GHB) in a severely tormented boy unable to sleep and unable to be anesthetized due to a lesion in the sleep initiation system involving the tracks between the ventrolateral preoptic nucleus and the reticular system. We bypassed the system by using sodium oxybate's effect on the cortical GHB and GABA

Topics: Anesthetics, Intravenous; Child, Preschool; DNA Viruses; Electroencephalography; Encephalitis; Epstein-Barr Virus Infections; Herpesvirus 4, Human; Hospitalization; Humans; Lymphohistiocytosis, Hemophagocytic; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Sleep Disorders, Circadian Rhythm; Sodium Oxybate; Treatment Outcome; Viral Load

Hypocretin deficiency causes narcolepsy. It is unknown whether melatonin secretion is affected in this sleep disorder. Therefore, in both narcolepsy patients and matched controls, the authors measured plasma melatonin levels hourly for 24 h before and after 5 days of sodium oxybate (SXB) administration. Although mean melatonin concentrations were similar between patients and controls, in narcoleptics the percentage of 24-h melatonin secreted during the daytime was significantly higher, and melatonin secretion exhibited a weaker coupling to sleep. SXB did not affect melatonin secretion. These findings suggest that hypocretin deficiency might disturb both the circadian control of melatonin release and its temporal association with sleep.

Topics: Adult; Case-Control Studies; Circadian Rhythm; Humans; Intracellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins; Male; Melatonin; Narcolepsy; Neuropeptides; Orexins; Sleep; Sleep Disorders, Circadian Rhythm; Sodium Oxybate