Could how much you sleep depend on your genes?

The genetics behind circadian rhythms has been well studied in recent years, however, much less is known about the genes that regulate how much sleep our bodies require. In a recent study published in Neuron, researchers from the University of California, San Francisco (CA, USA) examined a family with several members who require significantly less sleep than average (approximately 6 hours) and identified a new gene that they believe has a direct impact on how much someone sleeps. “It’s remarkable that we know so little about sleep, given that the average person spends a third of their lives doing it,”...