@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.
@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.