An automatic method for the study of REM sleep microstructure

A method is described for the automatic and quantitative analysis of changes in polysomnographic signals during REM sleep. The implementation of the procedures has been motivated by the remarkable psychophysiological and clinical significance not only of REM sleep per se, but also of its microstructure, given by state variations at frequencies slower than 1 Hz. These procedures provide a segmentation of REM sleep into sub-stages and allow the calculation of quantitative parameters connected with the microstructural properties of REM sleep.