Scientists at the University of California in San Francisco made a new research that might open doors to finding a treatment for insomnia and other sleep disorders. This is the first time scientists have ever identified a genetic mutation that has a relation to duration of sleep in any animal or human.

Here’s how it happened. “The scientists were searching the samples for variations in several genes thought to be related to the sleep cycle. In what amounts to finding a needle in a haystack, they spotted two DNA samples with abnormal copies of a gene called DEC2, which is known to affect circadian rhythms. They then worked back to find out who provided the samples and found a mother and daughter who were naturally short sleepers. The women routinely function on about 6 hours of sleep a night; the average person needs 8 to 8.5 hours of sleep.” (via NYTimes)

It’s a “landmark study”, according to Dr. Charles A. Czeisler, a leading sleep researcher and chief of sleep medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

This breakthrough research was published in the Friday issue of the journal Science.