Dogs and the Cure for Narcolepsy

As I posted more and more blogs, I became curious about one detail regarding medication for narcolepsy. I asked myself how were the first medications for narcolepsy tested? I knew that before medication for any disease is found and prescribed to patients, numerous researchers, scientists, and pharmacists have to test different drugs in labs. But how are they determining whether or not it works?

Emmanuel Mignot determined that dogs experience narcolepsy as well. At Stanford University, he used narcoleptic canines to test medication. His goal was to find a treatment for narcolepsy in dogs and ultimately apply his findings to treat humans.

He determined, “that some medications that were not available for human use, were very, very effective and much better treatment than the old medications that were used in human narcolepsy".

Mignot gave a narcoleptic teenager, Lindsey Watson, a novel medication that allows her to stay awake throughout the day. The treatment included the well known Xyrem, and Stratera. Both of these medications were tested on narcoleptic dogs.

Although there is still no cure for narcolepsy, treatment is constantly progressing As a result, Mignot believes that he one step closer to finding the cure. Since medications both help dogs and humans, there may be some important biological link. He took some time to study genes in dogs and found that they are missing hypocretin, a chemical that functions in wakefulness in the brain. He later found the same chemical is missing in humans. He believed that replacing hypocretin can mean a cure for narcolepsy. But one must ask one simple question: How? More research is being done to get to the bottom of this.

Here is a video of a dog with narcolepsy. As you watch, observe the similarities in narcoleptic symptoms between dogs and humans.