Rapid Eye Movement Behavior Disorder (RBD) refers to a condition in which patients act out their dreams and engage in potentially disruptive, injurious and even dangerous behavior while asleep[1-3]. Clinical reports of RBD have been shown to anticipate the development of neurodegenerative conditions like Parkinson's Disease by 20 years or more [4-6]. Despite this potential prognostic significance for human disease, the field of Sleep Medicine lacks an accepted computerized approach to quantify muscle activity in sleep. This proposed interdisciplinary research seeks to merge methods of computer engineering based computation with advanced neuroscience to establish a computerized clinical decision support system (CDSS) to detect RBD via measurement and analysis of the phasic electromyographic activity metric (PEM). The sponsor (Bliwise) has provided evidence based on traditional visual analyses from """"""""expert"""""""" scorers that PEM recorded during sleep is a sensitive indicator a) to differentiate PD patients from controls [7];b) to distinguish non-PD patients with a history of RBD from controls [8];and c) to differentiate PD patients with early and late stage disease [9]. These data suggest that computer-aided PEM detection within a user-friendly CDSS will be vital for clinicians to determine prognosis, track disease course, and, possibly, even monitor treatment.

Public Health Relevance

The proposed work is envisioned as a vital and integral component to establish standardized computerized bio-signal processing methods to detect phasic muscle activity in overnight human sleep polysomnograms for the identification and treatment of Rapid Eye Movement Behavior Disorder.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
Type
Postdoctoral Individual National Research Service Award (F32)
Project #
1F32NS070572-01A1
Application #
8203202
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-F02B-M (20))
Program Officer
Gnadt, James W
Project Start
2011-12-01
Project End
2014-11-30
Budget Start
2011-12-01
Budget End
2012-11-30
Support Year
1
Fiscal Year
2011
Total Cost
$53,042
Indirect Cost
Name
Emory University
Department
Neurology
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
066469933
City
Atlanta
State
GA
Country
United States
Zip Code
30322
Scullin, Michael K; Fairley, Jacqueline A; Trotti, Lynn Marie et al. (2015) Sleep correlates of trait executive function and memory in Parkinson's disease. J Parkinsons Dis 5:49-54
Fairley, Jacqueline A; Georgoulas, George; Smart, Otis L et al. (2014) Wavelet analysis for detection of phasic electromyographic activity in sleep: influence of mother wavelet and dimensionality reduction. Comput Biol Med 48:77-84
Fairley, Jacqueline A; Georgoulas, George; Mehta, Nishant A et al. (2012) COMPUTER DETECTION APPROACHES FOR IDENTIFICATION OF PHASIC ELECTROMYOGRAPHIC (EMG) ACTIVITY DURING HUMAN SLEEP. Biomed Signal Process Control 7:606-615
Fairley, Jacqueline A; Georgoulas, George; Stylios, Chrystostomos D et al. (2011) Phasic Electromyographic Metric detection based on wavelet analysis. Mediterr Conf Control Automation :