title: Insomnia in neurological diseases.
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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurological Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
authors.forename: Federica
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Provini
authors.forename: Carolina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lombardi
authors.forename: Elio
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Lugaresi
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D009422:Nervous System Diseases / Q000150:complications* / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000628:therapy; D007319:Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders / Q000209:etiology* / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000628:therapy