Somnambulism or
sleepwalking is a very interesting phenomena. It is thought to occur during
slow wave sleep (stage 3 or 4) when one is not fully awake or asleep. It is believed that people who sleep
walk cannot maintain a constant slow-wave sleep and are partially awake and
experience confusion and improper responses to the environment. One of the most challenging things
about sleepwalking is that there is no technology to detect or confirm the
diagnosis. Furthermore,
sleepwalking can be dangerous to the sleepwalker and others, which indicates a
need for better diagnosis and treatment.
One study looks
at the effect of sleep deprivation on sleepwalking behavior. This study
deprived patients of sleep for 25 hours and then monitored recovery
sleepwalking behavior. It was
found that sleepwalking behavior significantly increased when patients had been
sleep deprived. This is a
significant finding because it indicates a possible diagnostic technique. Furthermore,
these results indicate that there is some sort of malfunction in sustaining
short-wave sleep as compared to non-sleepwalkers. Not only is this a potential
diagnostic tool, but it also shows that sleepwalking patients must be
particular about getting a full amount of sleep.
Reference:
Zadra A, Mathieu P, Montplaisir J. 2008. Polysomnographic diagnosis of sleepwalking: Effects of sleep deprivation. Annals of Neurology. 63(4): 513-119.
Dominique,
ReplyDeleteSleepwalking is so interesting to me. In our culture of technology it is becoming more common that people text while sleeping or use social networking sites too. I did find a study by the same researchers about EEG analysis of people who experience sleep walking. They did not find a significant difference between the EEG patterns of sleep deprived participants during the baseline measurements and during recovery sleep (1). They did find however that approximately half of the participants who experienced sleep walking also experienced slow wave sleep. They also found that participants who experienced sleep walking were never completely awake during the episode. In your research, did you come across any information about how many people are estimated to be undiagnosed, even after testing such as you described? It seems like although there is a pattern for sleepwalking episodes, there may be some people that will not exhibit these patterns.
1. Zadra A, Pilon M, Joncas S, Rompré S, Montplaisir J. 2004. Analysis of postarousal EEG during somnambulistic episodes. J Sleep Res. 13: 279-284.