Open-source logic-based automated sleep scoring software using electrophysiological recordings in rats.
Manual state scoring of physiological recordings in sleep studies is time-consuming, resulting in a data backlog, research delays and increased personnel costs. We developed MATLAB-based software to automate scoring of sleep/waking states in rats, potentially extendable to other animals, from a variety of recording systems. The software contains two programs, Sleep Scorer and Auto-Scorer, for manual and automated scoring. Auto-Scorer is a logic-based program that displays power spectral densities of an electromyographic (EMG) signal and sigma, delta, and theta frequency bands of an electroencephalographic (EEG) signal, along with the delta/theta ratio and sigmaxtheta, for every epoch. The user defines thresholds from the training file state definitions which the Auto-Scorer uses with logic to discriminate the state of every epoch in the file. Auto-Scorer was evaluated by comparing its output to manually scored files from 6 rats under 2 experimental conditions by 3 users. Each user generated a training file, set thresholds, and auto-scored the 12 files into 4 states (waking, non-REM, transition-to-REM, and REM sleep) in 1/4 the time required to manually score the file. Overall performance comparisons between Auto-Scorer and manual scoring resulted in a mean agreement of 80.24+/-7.87%, comparable to the average agreement among 3 manual scorers (83.03+/-4.00%). There was no significant difference between user-user and user-Auto-Scorer agreement ratios. These results support the use of our open-source Auto-Scorer, coupled with user review, to rapidly and accurately score sleep/waking states from rat recordings.
Gross
Brooks A
BA
Department of Anesthesiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-0615, United States.
Walsh
Christine M
CM
Turakhia
Apurva A
AA
Booth
Victoria
V
Mashour
George A
GA
Poe
Gina R
GR
D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D001331:Automation / Q000379:methods*; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology; D004567:Electrodes, Implanted; D004569:Electroencephalography / Q000379:methods*; D004576:Electromyography / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D017286:Polysomnography / Q000379:methods*; D051381:Rats; D011916:Rats, Inbred F344; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012890:Sleep / Q000502:physiology*; D012894:Sleep Stages / Q000502:physiology; D012984:Software; D013997:Time Factors; D014851:Wakefulness / Q000502:physiology