Review of neural network applications in sleep research.

To find a better automated sleep-wake staging system for human analyses of numerous polygraphic records is an interesting challenge in sleep research. Over the last few decades, many automated systems have been developed but none are universally applicable. Improvements in computer technology coupled with artificial neural networks based systems (connectionist models) are responsible for new data processing approaches. Despite extensive use of connectionist models in biological data processing, in the past, the field of sleep research appeared to have neglected this approach. Only a few sleep-wake staging systems based on neural network technology have been developed. This paper reviews the current use of artificial neural networks in sleep research. Following a brief presentation of neural network technology, each of the existing system is described and attention drawn to the heterogeneity of the different processing approaches in sleep research. The high performances observed with systems based on neural networks highlight the need to integrate these tools into the field of sleep research.