Scientists at the University of California, San Francisco, found a mutation in a mother and daughter who need far less sleep than average.
It's the first time researchers have identified a mutation linked to sleep duration in animals or humans, neurologist Ying-Hui Fu, the study's lead author, said.
The two women with the gene mutation routinely functioned on about six hours of sleep per night when the average person requires eight to eight-and-a-half hours of sleep.
Mice then bred with the same mutation slept less and recovered more quickly from sleep deprivation than regular mice, Fu said Friday in the journal Science.
"We know sleep is necessary for life, but we know so little about sleep," Fu said. "As we understand the sleep mechanism more and more and all the pathways, we'll be able to understand more about what causes sleep problems."
Copyright 2009 by United Press International.
So this explains why the
So this explains why the neighbor next to me could stay up til the wee hours of the morning and still could work for 8 hours the next day. This development may be able to also answer the question why is it that as one gets older, he sleeps "lesser" at night...
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