Study suggests sleepwalkers are more multitasking than other people

The human being is increasingly obsessed with the ability to be multitasking. A new study published in the journal Current Biology pointed to the possibility that sleepwalkers might be better qualified to perform several tasks simultaneously, performing better and faster than those who don't go around while sleeping.

Carried out by scientists Olaf Blanke of the Lausanne Federal Polytechnic School in Switzerland and Oliver Kannape of Lancashire Central University in the United Kingdom, the new survey had a small sample of only 22 people, 11 of whom were sleepwalkers. and 11 were not. The aim was to try to make parameters and assumptions so that further research may continue the idea that something in the sleepwalker locomotor system is different from the deadly ones that actually settle down in their sleep.

They realized that the brain functions of those with this condition may be a bit more complex and independent of others, in the sense that sleepwalkers would be better prepared to put some tasks "on automatic" while performing others.

For example, have you ever tried to walk down the street while fiddling with your phone or reading something? There are people who perform both activities at the same time with the same excellence and others who get in trouble and need to focus on just one of them - either walk or read.

This preliminary research pointed out that those who can maintain both actions simultaneously are precisely those who walk while sleeping. "Although current data should be considered with caution (due to sample size and open sample size), we argue that the experimentally induced awake locomotor state in the present sleepwalker cohort resembles its nocturnal walking episodes in the absence of full awareness. Our findings link sleepwalkers to control neuroscience and locomotor consciousness and characterize a potential behavioral marker of sleepwalkers during full wakefulness that is only evident during walking under cognitive load, "says the study.

To reach this conclusion, they submitted participants to the following challenge. It was necessary to walk 1.8 meters using virtual reality glasses, first doing just that 88 times, some of which had some change in the angle of destination by 5, 10, 15 or 30 degrees. Then they had to do the same while counting and calculating aloud: 200 minus 7. 193 minus 7. 186 minus 7 and so on.

In the first part, everyone had similar speed; In the second, non-sleepwalkers had to slow down while doing the math. The sleepwalkers counted and maintained the same speed in the second part of the study.

As the researchers themselves pointed out, the conclusions reached by this study need to be interpreted with caution because of the small sample size and the fact that it was not a blind analysis - that is, the researchers knew which people were sleepwalkers and which were not. Still, it can lay the groundwork for future neuroscience analysis of sleepwalker brains and better understand how our locomotion system works and how it connects with other areas of the brain.

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