Rationale: To date, EEG is the only quantifiable measure of the neural changes that define sleep. Although it is used widely for clinical testing, scalp-electrode EEG is costly and is poorly tolerated by sleeping patients.
Objectives: This was a pilot study to assess the agreement between EEG recordings obtained from a new ear-EEG sensor and those obtained simultaneously from standard scalp electrodes.
Methods: Participants were four healthy men, 25 to 36 years of age. During naps, EEG tracings were recorded simultaneously from the ear sensor and from standard scalp electrodes. A clinical expert, blinded to the data collection, analyzed 30-second epochs of recordings from both devices, using standardized criteria. The agreement between scalp- and ear-recordings was assessed.
Measurements and main results: We scored 360 epochs (scalp-EEG and ear-EEG), of which 254 (70.6%) were scored as non-REM sleep using scalp-EEG. The ear-EEG sensor had a sensitivity of 0.88 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.82-0.92) and a specificity of 0.78 (95% CI, 0.70-0.84) in detecting N2/N3 sleep. The kappa coefficient between the scalp- and the ear-EEG was 0.65 (95% CI, 0.58-0.73). As a sleep monitor (all non-REM sleep stages vs. wake), the in-ear sensor had a sensitivity of 0.91 (95% CI, 0.87-0.94) and a specificity of 0.66 (95% CI, 0.56-0.75). The kappa coefficient was 0.60 (95% CI, 0.50-0.69).
Conclusions: Substantial agreement was observed between recordings derived from a new ear-EEG sensor and conventional scalp electrodes on four healthy volunteers during daytime naps.
Keywords: nocturnal EEG; obstructive sleep apnea; sleep; sleep-disordered breathing.