What is Orexin?

Orexin, also called hypocretin, is a neurotransmitter that regulates arousal, wakefulness, and appetite. The most common form of narcolepsy, in which the sufferer briefly loses muscle tone (cataplexy), is caused by a lack of orexin in the brain due to destruction of the cells that produce it.

The brain contains very few cells that produce orexin; in a human brain, about 10,000 to 20,000 neurons in the hypothalamus. However, the axons from these neurons extend throughout the entire brain and spinal cord, where there are also receptors for orexin.

Orexin was discovered in 1998 almost simultaneously by two independent groups of rat-brain researchers. The scientific community has not yet settled on a consensus for which word to use.