You know those people who only need 4 hours of sleep a night, yet who are energetic to the point of making you feel exhausted just by seeing what they do in a day? Well, there’s an app for that. OK, not really, but there is a gene for that. It’s called DEC2 (also called BHLHE41), and the evidence for it is pretty convincing. The group that originally identified this gene even made mice with a mutation in the gene and the mice also became short sleepers, and at least one other group has identified mutations subsequently in the same gene in other families with short sleep phenomenon.

What does this gene do, can I have a copy of that mutation, you are asking yourself. Continue reading “To Sleep, Perchance to Dream… Or Not” →