Research Projects

Sleep is a crucial restorative state characterized by reversible detachment from the environment, immobility, postural recumbence, and behavioral quiescence. It is a tightly regulated complex physiological process involving brain regions and neural circuits. Sleep disorders, such as somniloquy or sleep talking, offer a unique opportunity to study these regulatory processes. Somniloquy is a prevalent parasomnia where motor inhibition during sleep is depressed, providing insights into the neurobiological basis of sleep regulation and cognitive functions. The pathogenesis of somniloquy is elusive, but evidence suggests a strong genetic predisposition and runs in families. Family-based genetic studies could help discover genes for sleep talking phenotype. A three-generation multiplex family with four individuals manifesting somniloquy with a dominant inheritance pattern could be useful for delineating genes relevant for sleep talking. The proposal aims to elucidate the genetic architecture of sleep talking/somniloquy by performing whole exome sequencing of individuals with inherited somniloquy and replicating the observation by sequencing the identified gene/genes for variants in sporadic cases of somniloquy.