AI Article Synopsis

  • Arousal burden (AB) measures the cumulative duration of sleep interruptions relative to total sleep time, with the hypothesis that AB peaks when sleeping on the back and during non-rapid eye movement stage 1 (N1).
  • The study involved expert analysis of sleep recordings from 50 participants, revealing that AB was significantly higher in the supine position and during N1, as well as differing among the scorers.
  • The findings suggest a strong correlation between AB and the arousal index (ArI), but also highlight the variability in AB measurements among scorers, indicating a need for improved scoring techniques.

Article Abstract

Study Objectives: Arousal burden (AB) is defined as the cumulative duration of arousals during sleep divided by the total sleep time. However, in-depth analysis of AB related to sleep characteristics is lacking. Based on previous studies addressing the arousal index (ArI), we hypothesized that the AB would peak in the supine sleeping position and during non-rapid eye movement stage 1 (N1) and show high variability between scorers.

Methods: Nine expert scorers analyzed polysomnography recordings of 50 participants, the majority with an increased risk for obstructive sleep apnea. AB was calculated in different sleeping positions and sleep stages. A generalized estimating equation was utilized to test the association between AB and sleeping positions, sleep stages, and scorers. The correlation between AB and ArI was tested with Spearman's rank-order correlation.

Results: AB significantly differed between sleeping positions (<0.001). The median AB in the supine sleeping position was 47-62% higher than in the left and right position. The AB significantly differed between the sleep stages (<0.001); the median AB was more than 200% higher during N1 than during other sleep stages. In addition, the AB differed significantly between scorers (<0.001) and correlated strongly with ArI (=0.935, <0.001).

Conclusions: AB depends on the sleeping position, sleep stage, and scorer as hypothesized. AB behaved similarly as the ArI, but the high variability in the ABs between scorers indicates a potential limitation caused by subjective manual scoring. Thus, the development of more accurate techniques for scoring arousals is required before AB can be reliably utilized.

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Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.5664/jcsm.11398DOI Listing

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