A visitor might not realize this was a meeting devoted to people who experience excessive daytime sleepiness. The 2015 Hypersomnia Foundation Conference on Saturday was full of energy, with:
*more than 245 attendees, about twice as many people as last year’s conference
*medical experts from France, Wisconsin and Louisiana — in addition to Emory
*data from several recent clinical trials
*some signs of industry interest in hypersomnia
Hypersomnia is a sleep disorder in which individuals feel frequent or constant sleepiness and need to sleep for long portions of the day (more than 70 hours per week). It is distinct from other sleep disorders such as narcolepsy and sleep apnea, but its prevalence is still unclear. Conventional stimulants such as amphetamine or modafinil often can be used to treat the sleepiness, but some with hypersomnia find these drugs ineffective or hard to tolerate.
Previous research at Emory has shown that many individuals with hypersomnia have a substance in their spinal fluid that acts like a sleeping pill, enhancing the action of the neurotransmitter GABA. The identity of this mysterious substance is unknown, but Emory researchers report that they are close to identifying it. That could give hypersomnia a “molecular handle” similar to what narcolepsy has, with loss of hypocretin-producing neurons.
The terminology is still up in the air — keynote speaker Isabelle Arnulf from Paris said, “The term ‘idiopathic hypersomnia’ does not mean that you are an idiot.” Rather, she said, it means that even specialists can have trouble distinguishing hypersomnia from other sleep disorders, and “idiopathic” signifies that the detailed cause is still under investigation.