Identification of sleepwalking gene(s)

Sleepwalking is thought of as a rare disorder whose pathophysiology is poorly understood. Sleepwalking is a “disorder of arousal,” occurring out of deep sleep, although it is often still confused with dream enactment.¹ It is in fact a common childhood sleep disorder with a prevalence of up to 26% in childhood, and a lower prevalence, 3%, in adulthood.²

According to currently accepted evidence-based theories, the occurrence of sleepwalking requires genetic predisposition, priming factors such as severe sleep deprivation or stress, and, in addition, a proximal trigger factor such as noise or touch. These factors form the background for a “perfect storm,” all of which must occur before a sleepwalking episode will occur.³ Hereditary factors likely play an important role,⁵ with recessive⁵ and multifactorial inheritance⁶ patterns having been reported. A recent genetic study has shown that the HLADQB1*05 Ser74 variant is a major susceptibility factor for sleepwalking in familial cases,⁷ but this finding has yet to be replicated. Another study attempted to find a causal relationship between sleepwalking and sleep-disordered breathing …