[Sleep disorders during synucleopathies and taupathies]

Dissociate states of rapid eye movement sleep (REM) are much more frequent in patients with synucleopathy than in patients with taupathy (except that REM sleep behavior disorder may affect one third of patients with supranuclear palsy), as are sleep onset REM periods, observed in patients with Parkinson's disease, multiple systemic atrophy and Lewy body disease. Recent evidences suggest that they may result from non dopaminergic lesions, including cholinergic neurons in the locus subcoeruleus and orexinergic neurons in the lateral hypothalamus.