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