Differences in pre-sleep activity and sleep location are associated with variability in daytime/nighttime sleep electrophysiology in the domestic dog

Self Cite

Non-invasive polysomnography recording on dogs has been claimed to produce data comparable to those for humans regarding sleep macrostructure, EEG spectra and sleep spindles. While functional parallels have been described relating to both affective (e.g., emotion processing) and cognitive (e.g., memory consolidation) domains, methodologically relevant questions about the reliability of sleep stage scoring still need to be addressed. In Study 1, we analyzed the effects of different coders and different numbers of visible EEG channels on the visual scoring of the same polysomnography recordings. The lowest agreement was found between independent coders with different scoring experience using full (3 h-long) recordings of the whole dataset, and the highest agreement within-coder, using only a fraction of the original dataset (randomly selected 100 epochs (i.e., 100 × 20 s long segments)). The identification of drowsiness was found to be the least reliable, while that of non-REM (rapid eye movement, NREM) was the most reliable. Disagreements resulted in no or only moderate differences in macrostructural and spectral variables. Study 2 targeted the task of automated sleep EEG time series classification. Supervised machine learning (ML) models were used to help the manual annotation process by reliably predicting if the dog was sleeping or awake. Logistic regression models (LogREG), gradient boosted trees (GBT) and convolutional neural networks (CNN) were set up and trained for sleep state prediction from already collected and manually annotated EEG data. The evaluation of the individual models suggests that their combination results in the best performance: ~0.9 AUC test scores.

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 59%

“…Meanwhile, the same tendency was not significant for D in the two conditions [3]. According to another study with a different protocol [4], however, following an active day, dogs were more likely to have an earlier drowsiness and NREM. At the same time, dogs spent less time in D and more time in NREM and REM, compared to after a normal day.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 80%

Reliability of Family Dogs’ Sleep Structure Scoring Based on Manual and Automated Sleep Stage Identification

Gergely

Kiss

Reicher

et al. 2020

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“…Polysomnography recordings typically last several hours, and both sleep macrostructure as well as EEG spectrum are known to change over time, which is also the case in dogs [ 59 ]. Thus, a further important question for sleep ECG measures on short time intervals is the timing of the samples selected for analyses.…”

Section: Study Imentioning

confidence: 99%

Heart Rate and Heart Rate Variability during Sleep in Family Dogs (Canis familiaris). Moderate Effect of Pre-Sleep Emotions

Varga

Gergely

Galambos

et al. 2018

Self Cite

Simple SummaryIt is common knowledge that negative emotions in humans are accompanied by both impaired subjective experience as well as maladaptive changes in behavior and physiology. The present paper investigates heart rate—one of the most commonly used emotion-related physiology measures—in the family dog, with the aim of uncovering its potential relationship with emotions. Sleep recordings were conducted following a positive versus a negative social interaction, as sleep alternations are one of the most conspicuous changes in response to negative affect. We observed differences in heart rate following the positive versus negative interactions, however these were only apparent during wakefulness, but not during sleep.AbstractThe domestic dog (Canis familiaris) has been shown to both excel in recognising human emotions and produce emotion-related vocalisations and postures that humans can easily recognise. However, little is known about the effect of emotional experiences on subsequent sleep physiology, a set of phenomena heavily interrelated with emotions in the case of humans. The present paper examines heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) during dogs’ sleep, measures that are influenced by both positive and negative emotions in awake dogs. In Study I, descriptive HR and HRV data is provided on N = 12 dogs about the different sleep stages (wake, drowsiness, non-rapid eye movement (non-REM), REM; scoring based on electroencephalogram (EEG) data). We conclude that wakefulness is characterised by higher HR and lower HRV compared to all sleep stages. Furthermore, drowsiness is characterised by higher HR and lower HRV than non-REM and REM, but only if the electrocardiogram (ECG) samples are taken from the first occurrence of a given sleep stage, not when the longest periods of each sleep stage are analysed. Non-REM and REM sleep were not found to be different from each other in either HR or HRV parameters. In Study II, sleep HR and HRV measures are compared in N = 16 dogs after a positive versus negative social interaction (within-subject design). The positive social interaction consisted of petting and ball play, while the negative social interaction was a mixture of separation, threatening approach and still face test. Results are consistent with the two-dimensional emotion hypothesis in that following the intense positive interaction more elevated HR and decreased HRV is found compared to the mildly negative (lower intensity) interaction. However, although this trend can be observed in all sleep stages except for REM, the results only reach significance in the wake stage. In sum, the present findings suggest that HR and HRV are possible to measure during dogs’ sleep, and can potentially be used to study the effect of emotions not only during but also after such interactions.

“…In addition, dogs' activity levels, variation from routine, social interactions with other dogs and humans, and other emotional experiences [10][11][12] can also affect sleep. Dogs that are physically active during the day show a different sleep structure compared to dogs that are inactive [13]. Moreover, diet and feeding frequency [14], environmental enrichment and changes in housing have been demonstrated to impact on dogs' sleep [13][14][15].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sleep Duration and Behaviours: A Descriptive Analysis of a Cohort of Dogs up to 12 Months of Age

Kinsman

Owczarczak‐Garstecka

Casey

et al. 2020

Sleep is a vital behaviour that can reflect an animal’s adaptation to the environment and their welfare. However, a better understanding of normal age-specific sleep patterns is crucial. This study aims to provide population norms and descriptions of sleep-related behaviours for 16-week-old puppies and 12-month-old dogs living in domestic environments. Participants recruited to a longitudinal study answered questions relating to their dogs’ sleep behaviours in surveys issued to them when their dogs reached 16 weeks (n = 2332) and 12 months of age (n = 1091). For the statistical analysis, subpopulations of dogs with data regarding sleep duration at both timepoints were used. Owners of 16-week-old puppies perceived their dogs to sleep longer during the day and over a 24 h period, but for less time during the night than owners of 12-month-old dogs. At both timepoints, dogs were most commonly settled to sleep by being left in a room/area without human company. However, of dogs that had access to people overnight, 86.7% and 86.8% chose to be around people at 16 weeks and 12 months of age, respectively. The most common sleeping place was in a kennel/crate at 16 weeks (49.1%), and a dog bed at 12 months (31.7%). Future research within this longitudinal study will investigate how sleep duration and behaviours change with age and impact on a dog’s health and behaviour.