A twin and molecular genetics study of sleep paralysis and associated factors
Journal of Sleep Research February 9, 2015 Dan Denis, C. French, R. Rowe et al.
Sleep paralysis is moderately heritable (53%) in a UK sample of 862 twins and siblings aged 22–32 years. Poor sleep quality, anxiety symptoms, and exposure to threatening events were each independently associated with sleep paralysis. Variants in the PER2 gene showed some association, but this did not survive correction for multiple testing. The authors conclude that factors disrupting sleep cycles appear linked to sleep paralysis and that future research should explore circadian-rhythm and sleep-homeostasis polymorphisms.