A new study suggests that there is a strong body of knowledge and science behind sleep walking. Apparently, they found out that the tendency to sleepwalk is hereditary which can be passed from parent to child through a still unidentified gene.
According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, as much as 17% of children are sleepwalking. The study suggests that it is more likely for them to sleepwalk if they have a family history of the condition.
Other children who do not have any family history of sleepwalking, and children with one parent who sleepwalked when they were also kids, are three times more likely to sleepwalk themselves, Medical News Today reports.
"These findings point to a strong genetic influence on sleepwalking," the study authors wrote Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.
Dr. Jacques Montplaisir, of the Hopital du Sacre-Coeur de Montreal in Canada, and colleagues who wrote the study discovered the link between parental history of sleepwalking and the increased risk of sleep terrors among their children.
The researchers landed to their findings by analyzing sleep data from a total of 1,940 children who were part of the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development. The rate of sleep walking and sleep terrors among children was analyzed through questionnaires completed by their mothers, reports Los Angeles Times: Science Now.
Subsequently, they found out that these children were also twice more likely to experience persistent sleep terrors or nightmares in children ages 4. In the study, the authors reiterated, "These findings point to a strong genetic influence on sleepwalking and, to a lesser degree, sleep terrors. This effect may occur through polymorphisms in the genes involved in slow-wave sleep generation or sleep depth. Parents who have been sleepwalkers in the past, particularly in cases where both parents have been sleepwalkers, can expect their children to sleepwalk and thus should prepare adequately."
