JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

The pursuit of sleep quality has become an important aspect of people's global quest for overall health. However, the objective neurobiological features corresponding to subjective perceptions of sleep quality remain poorly understood. Although previous studies have investigated the relationship between EEG and sleep, the lack of longitudinal follow-up studies raises doubts about the reproducibility of their findings.

Objective:

Currently, there is a gap in research regarding the stable associations between EEG data and sleep quality assessed through multiple data collection sessions, which could help identify potential neurobiological targets related to sleep quality.

Methods:

In this study, we used a portable EEG device to collect resting-state prefrontal cortex EEG data over a three-month follow-up period from 42 participants. Each month, participants' sleep quality was assessed using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) to estimate their recent sleep quality.

Results:

We found that there is a significant and consistent positive correlation between low alpha band activity in the prefrontal cortex and PSQI scores. More importantly, this correlation remained consistent across all three-months follow up recordings, regardless of whether we considered the same cohort or expanded the sample size. Furthermore, we discovered that the periodic component of the low alpha band primarily contributed to this significant association with PSQI.

Conclusions:

These findings represent the first identification of a stable and reliable neurobiological target related to sleep quality through multiple follow-up sessions. Our results provide a solid foundation for future applications of portable EEG devices in monitoring sleep quality and screening for sleep disorders in a broad population.