Dopaminergic Substrates Underlying Hypersomnia, Sleepiness, and REM Sleep Expression

Abstract

Dopamine is the most abundant monoamine, and it modulates diverse behaviors including movement, motivation/reward, cognition, and feeding that share one notable feature in common—viz., each occurs during wake. Dopamine's influence upon normal and pathological states of wake and sleep has only recently begun to receive widespread attention. This rebirth of interest bears directly upon the pathophysiology and treatment of impairments in arousal encountered in narcolepsy with cataplexy, narcolepsy lacking cataplexy, the primary hypersomnias, and several psychiatric and medical conditions in which narcolepsy-like phenotypes are encountered. A comprehensive accounting presented in a recent publication includes a more complete bibliography. Here, we briefly summarize current knowledge of the functional anatomy of brain dopamine networks and how they modulate wake and REM-sleep. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)