Long term stability of rat sleep quantified by microcomputer analysis.

An inexpensive microcomputer system is described for the direct recording of electrographic data from animals. Using this system, electrographic data can be recorded continuously on a polygraph and simultaneously quantitated by the computer, for days or weeks. Our system quantifies the amounts of delta waves, spindle bursts, hippocampal RSA activity and movement spikes for 15 sec epochs. These electrographic data are stored by the computer and subsequently can be used to score sleep stages. We find that the computer reliably counts waves; using these data, it can then score sleep stages off-line with about 90% accuracy. With this system, we find that the minutes/hour of both SWS and REM are remarkably stable from day to day. The absolute number of delta waves, spindle bursts, trains of RSA and movement counts/hour also remain stable from day to day. This type of system should find significant application in situations where quantitation of longterm effects of drugs, diets and other environmental inputs on sleep states or EEG wave bands are of interest.