by Keyword: Sleep Transitions
Urra, O., Jané, R., (2014). New sleep transition indexes for describing altered sleep in SAHS IFMBE Proceedings 
XIII Mediterranean Conference on Medical and Biological Engineering and Computing 2013 (ed. Roa Romero, Laura M.), Springer International Publishing (London, UK) 41, 1017-1020
Traditional Sleep Structure Indexes (TSSIs) are insufficient to identify patterns of altered sleep. TSSIs mainly account for absolute time measures, but different levels of state instability may lead to similar absolute time distribution. Therefore, sleep stability remains beyond the scope of TSSIs. However, recent studies suggest that sleep disorders may be rather influenced by a breakdown in the sleep-stage switching mechanisms. In this study, we propose a set of 11 Sleep Transition Indexes (STIs) that characterize sleep fragmentation and account for the state-stability governed by the ultradian, homeostatic and circadian rhythms. We demonstrate that most of the proposed STIs are potential markers of SAHS severity, while TSSIs are not. In addition, we provide a new framework to analyze sleep disorders from the direct perspective of sleep regulatory mechanisms. In particular, our results indicate that SAHS may be influenced by a dysregulation of homeostatic rhythms but not of ultradian or circadian rhythms.
JTD Keywords: SAHS, Sleep Transitions, Sleep Structure, Polysomnography, Hypnogram
