Children with polygenic risk score for insomnia have more insomnia-related sleep problems between ages 1.5 and 15 years<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n
By Elana Gotkine HealthDay Reporter<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/b><\/p>\n
WEDNESDAY, Nov. 8, 2023 (HealthDay News) — Children who are genetically predisposed to insomnia have more insomnia-like sleep problems from early childhood through adolescence, according to a study published online Nov. 8 in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry<\/em>.<\/p>\n Desana Kocevska, M.D., Ph.D., from the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience in Amsterdam, and colleagues assessed whether polygenic risk scores for insomnia (PRS-I) and sleep duration (PRS-SD) affect sleep throughout early childhood to adolescence in a study involving 2,458 children of European ancestry. Mothers reported insomnia-related items of the Child Behavior Checklist at the child’s age of 1.5, 3, and 6 years. The Sleep Disturbance Scale for Children and actigraphy were assessed in 975 children at 10 to 15 years.<\/p>\n The researchers found more insomnia-related sleep problems between 1.5 and 15 years among children with higher PRS-I. There was no association seen for PRS-SD with mother-reported sleep problems. A higher PRS-SD was associated with longer actigraphically estimated sleep duration and more wake after sleep onset, but after multiple testing corrections, these associations did not persist.<\/p>\n “The manifestation of genetic liability in sleep phenotypes early in life offers potential targets for early risk estimation, detection, prevention, and intervention, with possible long-term benefits,” the authors write.<\/p>\n