"Counting sheep PSG": EEGLAB-compatible open-source matlab software for signal processing, visualization, event...

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Sleep Medicine
• Computational Biology

Background:

• Limited availability of open-source polysomnography (PSG) analysis tools hinders sleep research progress.
• Existing commercial software often involves high costs and proprietary formats, restricting data sharing and reproducibility.

Purpose of the Study:

• Introduce Counting Sheep PSG, an EEGLAB-compatible, open-source software for MATLAB.
• To provide researchers with advanced tools for polysomnography data analysis, visualization, and scoring.

Main Methods:

• Developed as an EEGLAB-compatible MATLAB software.
• Incorporates comprehensive signal processing, including artifact correction and power spectral analysis.
• Features customizable data visualization, event marking, manual sleep stage scoring, and automatic event detection.

Main Results:

• Offers advanced signal processing, including bad channel interpolation, ICA, and artifact subspace reconstruction.
• Provides customizable display of polysomnographic data and hypnograms.
• Includes automatic detection of movement artifacts, sleep spindles, slow waves, and eye movements, alongside exportable sleep architecture statistics.

Conclusions:

• Counting Sheep PSG significantly advances EEGLAB integration, preprocessing, artifact correction, and ease of use compared to previous tools.
• Addresses the need for free, open-source software in sleep research to overcome limitations of proprietary systems.
• Facilitates scientific advancement by enabling standardization and interoperability in sleep data analysis.