Idiopathic Hypersomnia (IH) is a rare sleep disorder characterised by excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) that leads to invalidating daytime consequences. Till now the treatment of IH has mirrored that of sleepiness in narcolepsy, and it is mainly focused on symptoms' management. We employed an anodal transcranic Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) treatment in order to induce a shift toward arousal in IH patients' cortex during the day. Every patients underwent a 4 weeks treatment (3 stimulations per week, for a total of 12 stimulations over a period of 28 days) with an assessment at the baseline and after treatment aimed to the evaluation of subjective daytime sleepiness, neurocognitive functions, and attentional domain tested by means of the Attentional Network Task (ANT). The dependent variables of the ANT are accuracy and reaction times, which represent the objective outcome of our study. A significant effect of tDCS' treatment in reducing EDS was found. Besides the amelioration in subjective EDS, an objective improvement in RTs in all conditions of the ANT, in particular in the more difficult component, was observed. Our results indicate that tDCS may foster the management of EDS in IH, improving also the attentional domain.

中文翻译：

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经颅直流电刺激（tDCS）对特发性失眠症的影响：一项前瞻性研究。

特发性失眠症（IH）是一种罕见的睡眠障碍，其特征在于白天过度嗜睡（EDS），导致白天后果无效。到目前为止，IH的治疗已反映出嗜睡症中的嗜睡现象，并且主要集中在症状的治疗上。我们采用阳极经颅直流电刺激（tDCS）治疗，以诱导白天IH患者皮层向觉醒的转变。每位患者接受为期4周的治疗（每周3次刺激，在28天内共12次刺激），并在基线和治疗后进行评估，旨在评估主观的白天嗜睡，神经认知功能和注意范围通过注意网络任务（ANT）进行测试。ANT的因变量是准确性和反应时间，这代表了我们研究的客观结果。发现tDCS的治疗在降低EDS方面具有显著作用。除了主观EDS的改善以外，还观察到在ANT的所有条件下，特别是在较困难的组件中，RT的客观改善。我们的结果表明，tDCS可能促进IH中EDS的管理，并改善注意力领域。