Research Progress in the Correlation Between Dopamine and Clinical Characterization of Narcolepsy
Dopamine,a neurotransmitter ubiquitous in the body fluids,blood,and urine of mammals and humans,is responsible for regulating their functions and metabolism.The dopamine system is involved in the neurobiological mechanisms of narcolepsy in animals and humans.However,researchers have drawn different or even opposite conclusions when measuring the dopamine level in the cerebrospinal fluid of narcolepsy pa-tients.Studies have confirmed that the occurrence of narcolepsy is related to the irreversible loss of orexins.The autoimmune reaction caused by the interactions of environmental factors with genetic factors destroys the hypotha-lamic orexin neurons and reduces orexin secretion,thereby lowering the level of arousal.We introduce the re-search progress and current status of dopamine and clinical characterization of narcolepsy by reviewing more than 40 articles published from 1982 to 2023,aiming to provide a reference for studying the relationship between the dopamine level and clinical characterization of narcolepsy and searching for the biomarkers of type 2 narcolepsy.