Multi-Branch Convolutional Neural Network for Automatic Sleep Stage Classification with Embedded Stage Refinement and...

Automatic sleep stage classification of multi-channel sleep signals can help clinicians efficiently evaluate an individual's sleep quality and assist in diagnosing a possible sleep disorder. To obtain accurate sleep classification results, the processing flow of results from signal preprocessing and machine-learning-based classification is typically employed. These classification results are refined based on sleep transition rules. Neural networks-i.e., machine learning algorithms-are powerful at solving classification problems. Some methods apply them to the first two processes above; however, the refinement process continues to be based on traditional methods. In this study, the sleep stage refinement process was incorporated into the neural network model to form real end-to-end processing. In addition, for multi-channel signals, the multi-branch convolutional neural network was combined with a proposed residual attention method. This approach further improved the model classification accuracy. The proposed method was evaluated on the Sleep-EDF Expanded Database (Sleep-EDFx) and University College Dublin Sleep Apnea Database (UCDDB). It achieved respective accuracy rates of 85.7% and 79.4%. The results also showed that sleep stage refinement based on a neural network is more effective than the traditional refinement method. Moreover, the proposed residual attention method was determined to have a more robust channel-information fusion ability than the respective average and concatenation methods.