A composite model of sleep regulation: Parameter estimation of the homeostatic "module"

Various authors have proposed models to account for the processes underlying the regulation of sleep and alertness. These different models are not mutually exclusive and were used as "modules" of a composite model. The horneostatic"module" was subjected to an optimization procedure based on a weighted least square error method, and using the mean time course of empirical slow-wave activity from a large data set as the reference. To further test the performance of the model, the estimated parameter values were used to simulate data from an independent data set. In general, a close fit was obtained between the simulated and empirical slow-wave activity data and their time course.