To Score or Not to Score? A look at the distinguishing power of micro EEG analysis on an annotated sample of PSG studies conducted in an HIV cohort.

In this study, we used the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index to divide the subjects into two groups, good sleepers and bad sleepers. We computed sleep behavioral (macro-sleep architectural) features and sleep spectral (micro-sleep architectural) features in order to observe if the annotated EEG data can be used to distinguish between good and bad sleepers in a more quantitative manner. Specifically, the macro-sleep features were defined by sleep stages and included sleep transitions, percentage of time spent in each sleep stage, and duration of time spent in each sleep stage. The micro-sleep features were obtained from the power spectrum of the EEG signals by computing the total power across all channels and all frequencies, as well as the average power in each sleep stage and across different frequency bands. We found that while the scoring-independent micro features are significantly different between the two groups, the macro features are not able to significantly distinguish the two groups. The fact that the macro features computed from the scoring files cannot pick up the expected difference in the EEG signals raises the question as to whether human scoring of EEG signals is practical in assessing sleep quality.