Explanations of Sleep Walking

Explanations of Sleep Walking

Knowledge 

Incomplete arousal

> Sleep walking is a disorder of arousal - a person who's sleep walking is partly awake in the sense that they're engaged in activities normally associated with the waking state, but they're also asleep.

> Sleep walkers are in a deep sleep (SWS) which means that it's very difficult to rouse the sleep walker.

> Recordings of brain activity made during sleep walking show a mixture of delta waves typical of SWS and beta waves which are characteristic of the awake state - SW occurs when someone in deep sleep is awakened but arousal of the brain is incomplete.

Risk factors

> PLAZZI ET AL. found that factors such as sleep deprivation, alcohol, having a fever, stress or psychiatric conditions increase the likelihood of sleep walking.

> Hormonal changes during puberty and menstruation may also be triggers for sleep walking.

> The fact that risk factors trigger sleep walking in only some people suggests that some individuals may have an inherited vulnerability for sleep walking.

Why children?

> One possibility for why sleep walking is more common in childhood is that it happens because children have more SWS than adults.

> OLIVIERO suggested that that system that normally inhibits motor…