Page 19 - The autoimmune hypothesis of narcolepsy and its unexplored clinical features M.S. Schinkelshoek

et al., 2019b) and weight gain (Fronczek et al., 2008, Poli et al., 2009), that are frequently reported in NT1 add to the difficulties these patients experience. In Chapter 5 and 6, two of these frequently overlooked symptoms in NT1 patients are described.
Outline of the thesis
As can be deducted from the Chapter topics, the focus of this thesis is two-fold. The lion share is about unravelling the autoimmune hypothesis of narcolepsy, which comprises a case report that links the disappearance of hypocretin-1 in cerebrospinal fluid to the emergence of NT1 symptoms (Chapter 1), a study on the role of HLA (Chapter 2) and cross-reactive T cells (Chapter 3) in the autoimmune response leading to NT1 and a study on which immune cells are unique to NT1 patients (Chapter 4). The second part of this thesis focuses on symptoms of NT1 that are highly relevant in NT1 patient’s everyday life: weight gain (Chapter 5) and daytime sleep state misperception (Chapter 6).
General introduction
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