Auto news on Youtube Jan 24 2018

Over the last few years, Bitcoin has attracted an enormous amount of media, business and

investor attention.

And while trading began as far back as 2009, the price of a single coin has since skyrocketed.

There are some Bitcoin evangelists promoting the currency as the 'future of money',

capable of replacing or transforming the current banking system; others are buying Bitcoin

as an investment, expecting an increase in value over time since there's a limited

number of coins that can ever be mined.

In the early days, a single Bitcoin was valued at less than a penny.

At the time, the digital currency attracted the attention of cryptography enthusiasts

as well as innovators interested in mining new coins.

But at that price, it's no surprise that keeping track of your Bitcoin wallet was not necessarily

a top priority.

The first documented Bitcoin purchase was recorded in 2010 when a developer in Florida

offered 10,000 bitcoins in exchange for two pizzas -- a value of around 41 dollars back

then.

What sounded like a fun idea at the time would now be worth over a hundred million dollars!

The recent surge in Bitcoin's popularity has resulted in speculators and first time

investors trading on exchanges, hoping to get rich quick.

This has led some experts to believe that a combination of visionaries, gamblers and

bots are responsible for the currency's sharp spikes and unpredictable plunges.

The extreme fluctuation in Bitcoin's value has become a common occurrence, where thousands

of dollars in gains can instantly disappear during a 'flash crash' in less than 24

hours.

Some investors have converted their entire life savings into Bitcoin, only to panic and

sell for a lot less than what they originally paid -- getting destroyed trying to make a

quick buck without having any idea what they're getting themselves into.

And aside from the obvious risk surrounding Bitcoin's volatile price, there have been

numerous hacks, thefts and scams.

So be extra careful handling digital currency, especially when it comes to keeping your Bitcoin

secure.

For more infomation >> What If You Invested In Bitcoin When It Was Worth Almost Nothing? - Duration: 2:11.

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What is Narcolepsy and What to Do About It? - Duration: 6:28.

Narcolepsy is a neurological disorder that results from your brain's inability to regulate

your sleep wake cycle.

Two of the classic symptoms are excessive daytime sleepiness and cataplexy.

What is cataplexy?

Cataplexy is the loss of muscle tone that is triggered by strong emotions such as laughing

or anger.

The muscle tone loss can be very dramatic such as collapsing to the floor.

Or it can be very subtle such as a slight facial droop.

When we talked about the sleep cycle, we talked about how a normal cycle goes from

light to deep sleep then to REM.

With narcolepsy, people have REM sleep intrude into their wakefulness.

So they can be awake and talking and suddenly become overwhelmingly sleepy.

When they fall asleep, they immediately go into dreaming.

On the surface it can seem as if people with narcolepsy are sleep deprived.

But they typically are not.

They usually get an adequate amount of sleep but they can't control the timing of their

sleep.

What are some other signs of narcolepsy?

Hypnogogic hallucinations – This is a weird experience that happens at sleep onset.

You can see bizarre and vivid images as you are transitioning from being awake to being

asleep.

Another sign of narcolepsy is sleep paralysis and it usually occurs with the hallucinations.

Because your body is normally paralyzed when you dream, and this is called REM atonia,

people with narcolepsy can get sleep paralysis at odd times of the day when they fall asleep.

The paralysis usually lasts a few seconds to a few minutes.

Because the paralysis and hallucinations occur at the same time, it makes the whole experience

of falling asleep very creepy.

People without narcolepsy can experience hypnogogic or hypnopompic hallucinations as well.

Hypnopompic hallucinations occur during the transition from sleep to waking up.

It can be accompanied by significant sleep inertia and even confusion.

You may have seen someone close to you wake up confused and talking without making sense

for a few minutes until they fully wake up.

If you ask them about the nonsensical stuff they were talking about, they probably won't

remember what they said. Or the content of what they said. They may remember speaking.

Let me tell you about a few other freaky experiences you can have with sleep paralysis.

Sometimes you can feel as though there is a presence in the room with you, feel chest

pressure as if someone is inhabiting your body or have the sensation of floating above

your body.

Like an out of body experience.

It's been thought that these experiences may be responsible for some people's believing

they have been inhabited by an alien.

Other symptoms of narcolepsy include choppy sleep, nightmares and leg jerking.

How is narcolepsy diagnosed?

Your doctor may suspect narcolepsy from your symptoms, but it's definitively diagnosed

from a sleep study.

A couple of the tests performed would be a polysomnogram and the multiple sleep latency

test .

The polysomnogram measures your muscle activity, breathing and brain activity.

The Sleep latency test measures your time to fall asleep.

A normal sleep latency is 15-20 minutes. Thirty minutes max.

Narcolepsy is diagnosed with a sleep latency of less than 8 minutes and the presence of

2 sleep onset REM periods.

With narcolepsy you must show on testing two instances when you go straight from awake

to REM.

The treatment for narcolepsy is basically managing the symptoms to make people

more functional because the inability to control your sleep timing can be very debilitating.

These people can fall asleep while sitting at a red light.

So the treatment involves medication plus behavioral strategies.

The gold standard treatment is a medication called Xyrem or sodium oxybate.

This medication treats the daytime sleepiness and the cataplexy.

Sodium oxybate is related to the drug GHB – gamma hydroxyl butyrate also known on

the street as liquid ecstasy.

Don't get scared. GHB is illegal, sodium oxybate is not.

If you still have daytime sleepiness with the Xyrem, your doctor may add a stimulant

such as Provigil and nuvigil are designed to help people with narcolepsy be more alert.

Sometimes antidepressants are used to treat the cataplexy, hypnagogic hallucinations and

sleep paralysis.

As for behavioral interventions, we usually recommend people take at least three scheduled

10-15minute naps during the day to help with the sleepiness.

It also may help prevent the sleepy episode from occurring by beating it to the punch

with a scheduled nap.

This way you are sleeping on your terms and not having it creep up on you while you are

at a traffic light.

So that's narcolepsy.

This usually develops in late adolescence to early adulthood.

It can go undectected in many people for years, but if you are just now at age 50 having trouble

staying awake during meetings, it's probably not narcolepsy.

In the next lecture we will discuss Movement Disorders that interfere with your sleep.