Narcolepsy may be an autoimmune disease

Editor’s note: The research paper described in this story was retracted on July 30, 2014, after the authors were unable to replicate one of their main results.

Narcolepsy occurs when wayward immune forces launch an attack on brain cells responsible for wakefulness, a new study suggests. In a case of mistaken identity, immune cells that target a protein fragment from a microbial invader also on rare occasions ravage neurons that produce a similar protein fragment, or peptide, researchers report.