The ties between drug use and mental disorders are well known, usually as part of a vicious cycle of one worsening the other. It’s surprising, then, that recent studies have found that heroin might represent a cure for a sleeping disorder called narcolepsy. The average night’s sleep for a healthy adult should be around eight hours, with it taking between 80 and 100 minutes to enter REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, which lasts for about a quarter of the total sleep time. REM is the deepest part of sleep when dreaming takes place. It also causes most of the body’s muscles to become temporarily paralyzed. In people with narcolepsy, REM sleep can happen involuntarily and within minutes.
Narcoleptics can fall asleep anywhere – at work, in the middle of a sentence, while driving – and while these episodes tend to only last a few minutes, they can be extremely dangerous. Apart from the dangers of falling asleep suddenly, narcolepsy can cause weakened muscles, excessive daytime sleepiness, an inability to stay asleep, sleep paralysis, and hallucinations while falling asleep or waking up. As an aside, people with narcolepsy sometimes turn to illegal stimulants or abuse their prescription medications such as amphetamines and Ritalin in order to deal with the disorder. Here’s where that vicious cycle comes into play because Ritalin abuse can cause insomnia, along with other sleep-disrupting side effects like anxiety and paranoia. Similarly, amphetamine abuse can lead to hallucinations and anxiety.
How does heroin enter the picture? Post-mortems on heroin users have shown high levels of a chemical in the brain called hypocretin, which promotes wakefulness. In narcoleptics, 90 percent of the cells responsible for making hypocretin are inactive. The heroin users, in comparison, had 54 percent more hypocretin-producing cells than normal brains. While this means they’re unlikely to suffer from narcolepsy, hypocretin plays a role in reward processing and the degree to which cravings are affected by cues like seeing a drug. This means people with an excess of the chemical are more likely to exhibit addiction behaviors. Finding a way to bring hypocretin production into balance could theoretically treat both conditions. One study from the University of California at Los Angeles gave morphine (which is derived from the same plant as heroin and is itself an addictive opioid) to mice genetically engineered to have narcolepsy for two weeks, and the drug returned their levels of hypocretin to normal and reduced the symptoms of narcolepsy.
Of course, as the ongoing opioid crisis has proven, these drugs are highly addictive, and they would cause more problems than they solve in humans. As a result, researchers are looking to other, similar drugs like codeine to see if they have the same effectiveness against narcolepsy.
If you or a loved one need help to quit drugs or alcohol, consider Asana Recovery. We offer medical detox, along with both residential and outpatient programs, and you’ll be supervised by a highly trained staff of medical professionals, counselors, and therapists. Call us any time at (949) 438-4504.
