IntelliSleepScorer, a Software Package with a Graphic User Interface for Mice Automated Sleep Stage Scoring

Summary

We present a software package with a graphic user interface for researchers without coding experience to score sleep stages in mice with a simple download and operation.

Abstract

Sleep stage scoring in rodents is the process of identifying the three stages: nonrapid eye movement sleep (NREM), rapid eye movement sleep (REM), and wake. Sleep stage scoring is crucial for studying sleep stage-specific measures and effects.

Sleep patterns in rodents differ from those in humans, characterized by shorter episodes of NREM and REM interspaced by waking, and traditional manual sleep stage scoring by human experts is time-consuming. To address this issue, previous studies have used machine learning-based approaches to develop algorithms to automatically categorize sleep stages, but high-performing models with great generalizability are often not publicly available/cost-free nor user-friendly for non-trained sleep researchers.

Therefore, we developed a machine learning-based LightGBM algorithm trained with a large dataset. To make the model available to sleep researchers without coding experience, a software tool named IntelliSleepScorer (v1.2- newest version) was developed based on the model, which features an easy-to-use graphic user interface. In this manuscript, we present step-by-step instructions for using the software to demonstrate a convenient and effective automatic sleep stage scoring tool in mice for sleep researchers.

Introduction

Sleep stage scoring in rodents is the procedure to identify the three stages: non-rapid eye movement sleep (NREM), rapid eye movement sleep (REM), and wake². In rodents, NREM is characterized by reduced muscle activity, slow and regular breathing, decreased heart rate, and low-frequency oscillations of the brain waves. REM in rodents, similar to humans, shows muscle atonia, EEG activation, and rapid eye movements, although the occurrence of vivid dreaming is less clear in rodents compared to humans^2,3. The "wake" state in rodents is marked by desynchronized brain activity with h....

Protocol

This study used data collected from in vivo experiments in mice. No human experiments were involved in the study. All the experiments with animals were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee at the Broad Institute. All experiments were performed in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations. The ARRIVE guidelines are not applicable to this study because the focus of this study is to develop machine learning models rather than comparing different treatment groups.

Discussion

This paper presents how to use the IntelliSleepScorer (v1.2) graphic user interface to automatically score the sleep stages of mice and how to leverage SHAP values/plots to better understand the sleep stage scores generated by the model.

An important consideration when using the software is data compatibility. The in-house data used in this study was limited to electrodes placed in the frontal and parietal regions. In the independent dataset from Miladinovic and colleagues^11<.......

Materials

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Canonical Unbuntu 18.04	Canonical	https://releases.ubuntu.com/18.04/	Supporting Operating System for the software IntelliSleep Scorer: Windows, Mac, or Linux
Intel Core i7-8550U CPU @ 1.80 GHz 1.99 GHz; RAM: 24 GB	Intel Corp	https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/details/processors/core-ultra.html	Hardware requirment for the software: Both Inte Core listed here have been used to process the data. It takes around 10 min to process 12 h of recording sampled at 1000 Hz for both hardwares. Any similar or superior hardware would yield comparable or better performance.
Intel Core i7-10610U CPU @1.80 GHz 2.30 GHz; RAM: 16 GB	Intel Corp	https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/details/processors/core-ultra.html	Hardware requirment for the software: Both Inte Core listed here have been used to process the data. It takes around 10 min to process 12 h of recording sampled at 1000 Hz for both hardwares. Any similar or superior hardware would yield comparable or better performance.
LightGBM	Microsoft	https://lightgbm.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html	Machine learning-based algorithm that was used to train the software.
MacBook Pro	Apple	https://www.apple.com/in/macbook-pro/	Supporting Operating System for the software IntelliSleep Scorer: Windows, Mac, or Linux
Windows	Microsoft	https://www.microsoft.com/en-in/windows/?r=1	Supporting Operating System for the software IntelliSleep Scorer: Windows, Mac, or Linux