Objective
- To develop an enhanced computer-based system for analyzing polysomnographies, which is reliable, reproducible, does not rely on rules to be interpreted by humans, describes sleep on a smaller temporal resolution and goes beyond the classical discrete status.
- To obtain an increased understanding of the contribution of particular variables to sleep analysis, which previously have not been considered extensively for sleep scoring.
- To arrive at an improved description of sleep for subjects which do not fall into the categories of R&K - e.g. elderly persons, sleep disturbed patients, and so on.
This project aims at extensive novel research on the architecture of nocturnal human sleep, as well as the development and evaluation of advanced methods for sleep analysis, based on polygraphic measurements, most prominently electroencephalography (EEG). The main need for a novel standard of modelling sleep comes from the limits of the only widely accepted standard -- a sleep manual according to Rechtschaffen & Kales -- and the increasing dissatisfaction with it among clinicians.
SIESTA aims at a computerized system for analyzing sleep that:
- has a higher temporal resolution
- describes major parts of sleep as a continuum
- does not depend on subjective rules
- incorporates a great variety of biosignals
- is validated on a large corpus of data (normals + patients with sleep disturbances)
Sleep analysis is of vital importance for the diagnosis and treatment of various kinds of sleep disturbances and psychiatric or neurological disorders. Chronic disturbed sleep has a decisive influence on health. If sleep is not able to fulfil its functions of alleviating tiredness, this can influence behavior and mood during the day, causing inefficiency at work, absenteeism, or even accidents. Furthermore, disturbed sleep will also influence the severity of diseases. By improving the basis for monitoring and treatment of sleep disturbances, SIESTA will greatly contribute to the improvement of European public health, and the efficiency of its workforce. SIESTA promises to reach the critical mass for performing focused and validated research and developing a new standard for sleep analysis that can tremendously improve the foundation of the field.
Funding Scheme
CSC - Cost-sharing contractsCoordinator
1010 Wien
Austria
Participants (15)
14050 Berlin
2501 CK Den Haag
8025 Barcelona
55101 Mainz
35033 Marburg
33101 Tampere
OX1 3PJ Oxford
33521 Tampere
8010 Graz
34109 Kassel
1090 Wien
1090 Wien
1010 Wien
9220 Ëlborg
1010 Wien