Study of cardiovascular and respiratory signals during sleep

Abstract

In the study of sleep, different signals, besides the EEG, are acquiring growing relevance for assessing the quality of sleep and for evaluating related pathologies. Recent studies demonstrated a strong involvement of the autonomic nervous system, of respiration and of neuromuscular activity during sleep and relations between sleep disorders and cardiovascular pathologies. In order to provide a more complete view of sleep, many signals must be taken into consideration and properly processed. The methodologies here presented are basically related to frequency domain analysis, multivariate and multiparametric analysis, and to the estimation of additional signals (respiration) from the recorded ones.