BioSleep: Demonstrating the Continuum

Image from BioSleep: Demonstrating the Continuum News Article

30th November 2006

A paper appearing in EMBC¹ reports a major advance in the study of sleep disorders. Oxford BioSignals, a spin-out company from Oxford University, has developed and validated BioSleep, a novel system based on neural network analysis, which not only elucidates the microstructure of sleep - fleeting changes which have never before been consistently demonstrated - but also reliably detects abnormal sleep patterns.

BioSleep

Electroencephalograms (EEG) have been used to diagnose sleep disorders since the 1930s. However, conventional monitoring analyses sleep in 30-second segments, and so clinicians have been unable to study the events occurring within each segment.

BioSleep, however, captures sleep on a second-by-second basis. It is this which enables transient events – micro-arousals lasting no more than 10 seconds, and rapid shifts from one stage of sleep to another – to become apparent. Here, for the first time, is a tool which demonstrates sleep as comprising not a succession of discrete stages but a nightlong progression forwards and backwards along the sleep/wake continuum. “What we may be seeing now for the first time is the nature of abnormal sleep in patients who currently present with sleep problems but with no clear documentation of the type of sleep disturbance,” says Professor Thomas Roth, Director, Henry Ford Hospital Sleep Disorders and Research Center, Detroit, USA.

As many as one in ten people suffer with sleep disorders – more than 90 are known – with well-recognised effects on performance. Sleep disturbance is now associated with an increase in road accidents, cardiovascular disease and asthma, and is estimated to cost industry $18bn each year in lost productivity. Diagnosis and appropriate treatment depend on accurate analysis of sleep data, but interpretation of a single night’s sleep may take up to five hours. In addition, well-documented differences in interpretation between experts mean that diagnosis is highly subjective.

Studies confirm that BioSleep’s unique neural network technology provides the consistency and accuracy of interpretation which is lacking in conventional systems. The ability to see sleep in a new way, and to analyse it reliably and rapidly, represents a significant advance in the management of sleep disorders.

“It is critically important to distinguish between arousals in apnoea and arousal in insomniacs. This exciting new technology may allow us to make this distinction, and offer patients much-needed and appropriate treatment,” says Professor Roth.

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