SOMNAMBULISM (SLEEPWALKING) IS A PARASOMNIA CHARACTERIZED BY BEHAVIORAL MANIFESTATIONS OF VARIOUS DEGREES OF COMPLEXITY AND duration occurring during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep.1 Somnambulistic episodes generally arise from sudden but incomplete arousal from slow-wave sleep (SWS; stage 3 and 4 sleep) during the first third of the night2-4 but may also occur out of stage 2 sleep or late...

Although there exist numerous pediatric sleep disorders as defined by the DSM-IV and the American Sleep Disorders Association, the majority of these problems are transient in nature and/or present problems primarily at night (e.g. insomnia, enuresis, nightmares, night terrors, somnambulism). Sleep apnea and narcolepsy, conversely, are often chronic, potentially lifelong disorders that give rise...

Despite widespread prevalence of sleepwalking, its etiology and pathophysiology are not well understood. However, there is some evidence that sleepwalking can be precipitated by sleep-disordered breathing. A hypothesis is proposed that serotonergic system may be a link between sleep-disordered breathing and sleepwalking. Serotonergic neurons meet basic requirements for such a role because they ...

Essential tremor is a common neurological disorder characterised by postural and kinetic tremor. In the American Academy of Neurology 2011 evidence-based guidelines for the treatment of essential tremor, propranolol and primidone were the only two medications for which Level A recommendations were issued. Both medications are usually well tolerated. We recently prescribed propranolol to a 34-ye...

The purpose of this study was to measure the wheelchair drag and maximal sprint performance abilities of wheelchair basketball players and to make comparisons between male and female players. A group of nine male and eight female wheelchair basketball players attending a national training camp consented to serve as subjects. Each subject completed six coast-down trials at speeds from a walking ...

Zolpidem is a widely prescribed nonbenzodiazepine hypnotic medication available in the United States since 1992. Attention has been drawn recently to its potential to cause sleep-related, complex behaviors such as sleepwalking and sleep driving. These automatic behaviors have led to a deluge of legal claims. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first review in the forensic literature of the l...

Police road accident data from Great Britain for 1990-2009 were analysed. RR(NF) is the risk of a casualty occurring in the first half of road crossing, the half nearest to the pedestrian's starting position at the roadside, compared to the risk of it occurring in the second half. Children and younger adult pedestrians had a high relative risk of being killed or seriously injured in the nearsid...

An important principle of human ethics is that individuals are not responsible for actions performed when unconscious. Recent research found that the generation of an action and the building of a conscious experience of that action (agency) are distinct processes and crucial mechanisms for self-consciousness. Yet, previous agency studies have focussed on actions of a finger or hand. Here, we in...

A large number of drugs are associated with sleep disorders. This article starts with a classification of various druginduced sleep disorders and lists drugs associated with each. Some sleep disorders, such as sleepwalking, have been associated with the use of hypnotics for insomnia. Pathomechanism is described when known. This knowledge may help in the modification of drug therapy or alternati...

OBJECTIVE Recent studies have suggested that the onset of sleepwalking episodes may be preceded by fluctuations in slow-wave sleep electroencephalographic characteristics. However, whether or not such fluctuations are specific to sleepwalking episodes or generalized to all sleep-wake transitions in sleepwalkers remains unknown. The goal of this study was to compare spectral power for delta (1-4...