Therapeutic Prospects of Ketamine for Cataplexy in Narcolepsy Type 1: Evidence from a Human Case and a Murine Model.

Ricordeau F, Arthaud S, Langbour L, +5 more, Peyron C.

Case ReportsOpen access

AI summary — for doctors, generated from the abstract only

Intranasal ketamine sharply reduced cataplexy in one patient with narcolepsy type 1 and in orexin knockout mice, motivating clinical trials.

What was studied

A case report of a 34-year-old man intolerant to standard therapy plus a crossover study of ketamine versus vehicle in orexin knockout mice.

Key findings

Morning intranasal ketamine produced marked, sustained cataplexy reduction in the patient, with recurrence after stopping.
In mice, ketamine cut cataplexy time by 76% (p=0.008) without altering sleep architecture.

Clinical relevance

Offers a possible new route for patients with cataplexy who cannot tolerate current drugs.

Who should care

Neurology

Limitations

A single case plus a small animal study, so efficacy and safety in humans are unproven.

Do not use ketamine for cataplexy outside of research; await trials.

This is an AI-generated summary of the published abstract, not a clinical recommendation. It may not reflect the full text or subsequent updates — verify against the original source before acting on it.

Abstract

Narcolepsy type 1 is characterized by cataplexy, for which current treatments targeting monoaminergic, histaminergic, and GABAergic pathways may be ineffective or poorly tolerated. We report the case of a 34-year-old man with narcolepsy type 1, intolerant to standard therapies, who experienced marked and sustained cataplexy reduction with morning intranasal ketamine, with symptom recurrence upon discontinuation. To confirm this observation, ketamine was compared with vehicle in a crossover study in orexin knockout mice implanted for polysomnography. Ketamine dramatically reduced time spent in cataplexy (-76%, p = 0.008) without affecting sleep architecture. These translational findings suggest ketamine as a potential anticataplectic agent, warranting further clinical investigation. ANN NEUROL 2026;100:1023-1027.

DOI

10.1002/ana.78343

PMID

42663325

Research metadata (titles, abstracts, authors, publication dates) is sourced from Europe PMC, which aggregates content from PubMed/MEDLINE, PubMed Central, and other providers under the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM/NCBI). NLM does not claim copyright on abstracts; the original journal publishers or authors may hold rights to the full articles. AI-generated summaries are derived only from the abstract, never the full text, and are always labeled as AI-generated.

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