What kind of chemical change in the brain would cause a person to never have to sleep?

Melatonin deficiency.

You forget that several of your organs also need the down time as well. Not just the brain.

@King_Pariah That wasnt his/her question, was it?

@marialisa he asked for what chemical changes in the brain would cause a person to never have to sleep, you’ll still have to sleep if you don’t do something for your other organs as well.

Fatal Familial Insomnia is a disease that runs in people’s genes that causes them to be incapable of sleep, to the point of death. Before that, they loose all their motor functions and are in agony, at which point they fall into a coma. It begins in middle age, and about twenty eight families worldwide carry the gene.

@athenasgriffin
Does their protein start crystalizing or what makes them more ill and in agony/pain etc?
Do they have a lot of ketones in their urine?

@Flutherit I’m not really sure, I saw a documentary on sleep that included an interesting bit on the disease, and that is what I remembered from my googling afterward. The worst part is, onset is in middle age, so they have already passed it on by the time they know they have it. Luckily, there is now a test, so in the future one could not have children if they know they are likely to send the gene down.

Death would do it, but it’s a pretty big chemical change.

@Flutherit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_familial_insomnia