Sleep Research with Digital Video Technologies

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Mouse provides an excellent genetic model for the study of sleep/wake regulation, sleep. Homeostasis and the interaction between sleep and circadian processes. Study of sleep states in mice may ultimately provide insight into the control of sleep in humans. A complete phenotypic description of sleep in mouse strains is necessary for the genetic analysis of sleep/wake control. Sleep research has been plagued with technological limitations because identifying sleep from EEG and EMG activity has been the primary technique used to study sleep in rodents. An alternative to using EEG and EMG for sleep analysis involves using visual observational data about the activities or behaviors of rodents. Automating such visual observation processes will be an important landmark in the field of sleep research. Therefore, we propose to develop methodologies and design algorithms to automate the monitoring and analysis of rodents' behaviors proceeding, during, and following sleep in order to facilitate sleep research. This proposed study would involve the determination of sleep-related behaviors, automated algorithm design, and the correlated analysis of multi-modal signals including video, EEG, and EMG. From a commercial perspective, the development of a video analysis system to score sleep/wake states will expand the capabilities of the Clever Sys Inc video analysis system. This video analysis system will assist the rapid development and analysis of novel treatments of sleep disorders, tens of millions dollar industry at present.