title: Accurate discrimination of the wake-sleep states of mice using non-invasive whole-body plethysmography.
abstract: A major limitation in the study of sleep breathing disorders in mouse models of pathology is the need to combine whole-body plethysmography (WBP) to measure respiration with electroencephalography/electromyography (EEG/EMG) to discriminate wake-sleep states. However, murine wake-sleep states may be discriminated from breathing and body movements registered by the WBP signal alone. Our goal was to compare the EEG/EMG-based and the WBP-based scoring of wake-sleep states of mice, and provide formal guidelines for the latter. EEG, EMG, blood pressure and WBP signals were simultaneously recorded from 20 mice. Wake-sleep states were scored based either on EEG/EMG or on WBP signals and sleep-dependent respiratory and cardiovascular estimates were calculated. We found that the overall agreement between the 2 methods was 90%, with a high Cohen's Kappa index (0.82). The inter-rater agreement between 2 experts and between 1 expert and 1 naïve sleep investigators gave similar results. Sleep-dependent respiratory and cardiovascular estimates did not depend on the scoring method. We show that non-invasive discrimination of the wake-sleep states of mice based on visual inspection of the WBP signal is accurate, reliable and reproducible. This work may set the stage for non-invasive high-throughput experiments evaluating sleep and breathing patterns on mouse models of pathophysiology.
authors.affiliation: Prism Lab, Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, I-40126, Italy.
authors.forename: Stefano
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bastianini
authors.affiliation: Prism Lab, Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, I-40126, Italy.
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Alvente
authors.affiliation: Prism Lab, Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, I-40126, Italy.
authors.forename: Chiara
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Berteotti
authors.affiliation: Prism Lab, Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, I-40126, Italy.
authors.forename: Viviana
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Lo Martire
authors.affiliation: Prism Lab, Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, I-40126, Italy.
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Silvani
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, MA 01267, USA.
authors.forename: Steven J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Swoap
authors.affiliation: Prism Lab, Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, I-40126, Italy.
authors.forename: Alice
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Valli
authors.affiliation: Prism Lab, Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, I-40126, Italy.
authors.forename: Giovanna
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zoccoli
authors.affiliation: Department of Women's and Children's Health, Neonatal Unit, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, 17176, Sweden.
authors.forename: Gary
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Cohen
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001794:Blood Pressure; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004576:Electromyography; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D010993:Plethysmography, Whole Body / Q000379:methods; D012890:Sleep / Q000502:physiology*; D012894:Sleep Stages; D014851:Wakefulness / Q000502:physiology*