NeuroSleepNet: A Multi-Head Self-Attention Based Automatic Sleep Scoring Scheme with Spatial and Multi-Scale Temporal Representation Learning

Objective: Automatic sleep scoring is crucial for diagnosing sleep disorders. Existing frameworks based on Polysomnography often rely on long sequences of input signals to predict sleep stages, which can introduce complexity. Moreover, there is limited exploration of simplifying representation learning in sleep scoring methods. Methods: In this study, we propose NeuroSleepNet, an automatic sleep scoring method designed to classify the current sleep stage using only the microevents in the current input signal, without the need for past inputs. Our model employs supervised spatial and multi-scale temporal context learning and incorporates a transformer encoder to enhance representation learning. Additionally, NeuroSleepNet is optimized for balanced performance across five sleep stages by introducing a logarithmic scale-based weighting technique as a loss function. Results: NeuroSleepNet achieved similar and comparable performance with current state-of-the-art results. The best accuracy, macro-F1 score, and Cohen's kappa were 86.1 percent, 80.8 percent, and 0.805 for Sleep-EDF expanded; 82.0 percent, 76.3 percent, and 0.753 for MESA; 80.5 percent, 76.8 percent, and 0.738 for Physio2018; and 86.7 percent, 80.9 percent, and 0.804 for the SHHS database. Conclusion: NeuroSleepNet demonstrates that even with a focus on computational efficiency and a purely supervised learning approach, it is possible to achieve performance that is comparable to state-of-the-art methods. Significance: Our study simplifies automatic sleep scoring by focusing solely on microevents in the current input signal while maintaining remarkable performance. This offers a streamlined alternative for sleep diagnosis applications.

STREAMLINE: An Automated Machine Learning Pipeline for Biomedicine Applied to Examine the Utility of Photography-Based Phenotypes for OSA Prediction Across International Sleep Centers

While machine learning (ML) includes a valuable array of tools for analyzing biomedical data, significant time and expertise is required to assemble effective, rigorous, and unbiased pipelines. Automated ML (AutoML) tools seek to facilitate ML application by automating a subset of analysis pipeline elements. In this study we develop and validate a Simple, Transparent, End-to-end Automated Machine Learning Pipeline (STREAMLINE) and apply it to investigate the added utility of photography-based phenotypes for predicting obstructive sleep apnea (OSA); a common and underdiagnosed condition associated with a variety of health, economic, and safety consequences. STREAMLINE is designed to tackle biomedical binary classification tasks while adhering to best practices and accommodating complexity, scalability, reproducibility, customization, and model interpretation. Benchmarking analyses validated the efficacy of STREAMLINE across data simulations with increasingly complex patterns of association. Then we applied STREAMLINE to evaluate the utility of demographics (DEM), self-reported comorbidities (DX), symptoms (SYM), and photography-based craniofacial (CF) and intraoral (IO) anatomy measures in predicting any OSA or moderate/severe OSA using 3,111 participants from Sleep Apnea Global Interdisciplinary Consortium (SAGIC). OSA analyses identified a significant increase in ROC-AUC when adding CF to DEM+DX+SYM to predict moderate/severe OSA. A consistent but non-significant increase in PRC-AUC was observed with the addition of each subsequent feature set to predict any OSA, with CF and IO yielding minimal improvements. Application of STREAMLINE to OSA data suggests that CF features provide additional value in predicting moderate/severe OSA, but neither CF nor IO features meaningfully improved the prediction of any OSA beyond established demographics, comorbidity and symptom characteristics.