arcticpenguin
Philosopher
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http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2003/218/3
(ScienceNow - subscription only)
Because the children of sleepwalkers are 10 times more likely to somnambulate than those without sleepwalking relatives, researchers have long suspected that the disorder has a genetic component. Geneticist Mehti Tafti of Geneva University, Switzerland, and his colleagues wondered if a gene implicated in other sleeping disorders such as narcolepsy might be a culprit. To find out, his group compared the gene, called HLA-DQB1, in 60 sleepwalkers and their immediate families, along with 60 non-sleepwalkers.
Sure enough, the risk of sleepwalking was 3.5 times higher in people carrying a particular version of the gene, the team reports in the January issue of Molecular Psychiatry. The HLA genes help target foreign cells for attack by the immune system. Tafti favors the idea that severe sleepwalking might be due to the immune system targeting cells important for sleep regulation, an idea supported by the other known genetic links between sleep disorders and HLA genes.
So; there may be a hereditary predisposition for sleepwalking, and the condition may have a basis in auto-immunity.
Interesting and speculative.
(ScienceNow - subscription only)
Because the children of sleepwalkers are 10 times more likely to somnambulate than those without sleepwalking relatives, researchers have long suspected that the disorder has a genetic component. Geneticist Mehti Tafti of Geneva University, Switzerland, and his colleagues wondered if a gene implicated in other sleeping disorders such as narcolepsy might be a culprit. To find out, his group compared the gene, called HLA-DQB1, in 60 sleepwalkers and their immediate families, along with 60 non-sleepwalkers.
Sure enough, the risk of sleepwalking was 3.5 times higher in people carrying a particular version of the gene, the team reports in the January issue of Molecular Psychiatry. The HLA genes help target foreign cells for attack by the immune system. Tafti favors the idea that severe sleepwalking might be due to the immune system targeting cells important for sleep regulation, an idea supported by the other known genetic links between sleep disorders and HLA genes.
So; there may be a hereditary predisposition for sleepwalking, and the condition may have a basis in auto-immunity.
Interesting and speculative.