title: Tunable somatosensory stimulation for selective sleep restriction studies in rodents.
abstract: Many methods for sleep restriction in rodents have emerged, but most are intrusive, lack fine control, and induce stress. Therefore, a versatile, non-intrusive means of sleep restriction that can alter sleep in a controlled manner could be of great value in sleep research. In previous work, we proposed a novel system for closed-loop somatosensory stimulation based on mechanical vibration and applied it to the task of restricting Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep in mice [1]. While this system was effective, it was a crude prototype and did not allow precise control over the amplitude and frequency of stimulation applied to the animal. This paper details the progression of this system from a binary, "all-or-none" version to one that allows dynamic control over perturbation to accomplish graded, state-dependent sleep restriction. Its preliminary use is described in two applications: deep sleep restriction in rats, and REM sleep restriction in mice.
authors.forename: Dillon M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Huffman
authors.forename: Kendra E
authors.initials: KE
authors.lastname: Staggs
authors.forename: Farid
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Yaghouby
authors.forename: Anuj
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Agarwal
authors.forename: Bruce F
authors.initials: BF
authors.lastname: O'Hara
authors.forename: Kevin D
authors.initials: KD
authors.lastname: Donohue
authors.forename: Eric M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Blalock
authors.forename: Sridhar
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sunderam
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D051379:Mice; D051381:Rats; D012890:Sleep; D012895:Sleep, REM; D014732:Vibration