SleepInvestigatoR: A flexible R function for analyzing scored sleep in rodents

Abstract

Analyzing scored sleep is a fundamental prerequisite to understanding how sleep changes between health and disease. Classically, this is accomplished by manually calculating various measures (e.g. percent of non-rapid eye movement sleep) from a collection of scored sleep files. This process can be tedious and error-prone, especially when studies include large animal numbers or involve long recording sessions. To address this issue, we present SleepInvestigatoR, a versatile tool that can quickly organize and analyze multiple scored sleep files into a single output. The function is written in the open-source statistical language R and has a total of 25 parameters that can be set to match a wide variety of experimental needs. SleepInvestigatoR delivers a total of 23 unique measures of sleep, including all measures commonly reported in the rodent literature. A simple plotting function is also provided to quickly graph and visualize the scored data. All code is designed to be implemented with little formal coding knowledge, and step-by-step instructions are provided on the corresponding GitHub page. Overall, SleepInvestigatoR provides the sleep researcher a critical tool to increase efficiency, interpretation, and reproducibility in analyzing scored rodent sleep.