Technical challenges in REM sleep microstructure classification: A study of patients with REM sleep behaviour disorder

Abstract

SummaryWhile commonly treated as a uniform state in practice, rapid eye movement sleep contains two distinct microstructures—phasic (presence of rapid eye movement) and tonic (no rapid eye movement). This study aims to identify technical challenges during rapid eye movement sleep microstructure visual classification in patients with rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder, and to propose solutions to enhance reliability between scorers. Fifty‐seven sleep recordings were randomly allocated into three subsequent batches (n = 10, 13 and 34) for scoring. To reduce single‐centre bias, we recruited three raters/scorers, with each trained from a different institution. Two raters independently scored each 30‐s rapid eye movement sleep into 10 × fSEM3‐s phasic/tonic microstructures based on the AASM guidelines. The third rater acted as an “arbitrator” to resolve opposite opinions persisting during the revision between batches. Besides interrater differences in artefact rejection rate, interrater variance frequently occurred due to transitioning between microstructures and moderate‐to‐severe muscular/electrode artefact interference. To enhance interrater agreement, a rapid eye movement scoring schematic graph was developed, incorporating proxy electrode use, filters and cut‐offs for microstructure transitioning. To assess potential effectiveness of the schematic graph proposed, raters were instructed to systematically apply it in scoring for the third batch. Of the 34 recordings, 27 reached a Cohen's kappa score above 0.8 (i.e. almost perfect agreement between raters), significantly improved from the prior batches (p = 0.0003, Kruskal–Wallis test). Our study illustrated potential solutions and guidance for challenges that may be encountered during rapid eye movement sleep microstructure classification.