We talk to Curzio Vasapollo about the practicalities and challenges of measuring the sleeping brain using EEG (electroencephalography). We also discuss what happens in a sleep lab vs tracking your sleep at home, AI, biotech and loads more.

Prefer to read? Download the full episode transcript here

Episode Highlights:

* 03:52 Description of ZMax platform

* 04:13 Zmax applications - research, lucid dreaming, neuro-feedback

* 07:47 What is EEG?

* 12:01 Misconceptions of 'brain-waves'

* 15:24 What is a hypnogram?

* 16:58 What is light sleep (N1 sleep)?

* 19:46 N2 sleep, K-complexes and sleep spindles

* 22:28 Slow wave (deep) sleep or N3 sleep

* 26:28 REM detection and lucid dreaming

* 31:15 Why a sleep cycles is not 90 minutes

* 32:33 Contrasting EEG sleep recording at home and in the sleep lab

* 32:33 The limitations of FitBits and movement based sleep trackers

* 35:04 Challenges of building an accurate EEG wearable

* 56:14 Turning raw EEG data into a usable hypnogram with AI

* 65:01 Lucid dreaming research using ZMax

* 69:05 Detecting sleep apnea with a wearable

* 73:05 the future of sleep technology is in biotech, not hardware

Episode Homepage: http://sleepjunkies.com/podcast/measuring-the-sleeping-brain/

This episode's guest:

Curzio Vasapollo, developer of Zmax

Curzio (Kurt) Vasapollo is the inventor of Zmax, an EEG-based sleep acquisition tool for monitoring sleep accurately outside of the sleep lab with applications for sleep research, lucid dreaming and bio/neuro-feedback

Links:

Zmax website - http://hypnodynecorp.com/

ResearchGate - https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Curzio_Vasapollo

Overview of EEG and sleep (Medscape) - https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1140322-overview

Sleep tracking guide - http://sleepjunkies.com/features/the-ultimate-guide-to-sleep-tracking/

More Episodes:

Full Transcript:

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Jeff: Hi Kurt how you doing?

Kurt: I'm doing fine thank you.

Jeff: I'm going to really try and pick your brains today. Before we get into the question and answer, I like to give guests the opportunity to what I call an elevator pitch and now I just mentioned you've created this platform called ZMax. Now, in a succinct way, because it's a very sophisticated platform that you've created, can you just give us a very brief overview what your platform does?

Description of ZMax platform

Kurt: So, ZMax is a sleep acquisition and analysis system. It consists of both hardware and software. The hardware is a comfortable headband that you put on your head before you go to sleep and the software is a toolset for displaying data, that is acquired and for analyzing features of sleep.

Some of the applications of ZMax for exemplar in sleep research, sleep researchers across Europe use ZMax to capture data from their participants in their sleep studies.

For example; the Stockholm University and Karolinska Institute, Radboud University, Netherlands Harrison Institute, in Amsterdam with Dr Van Someron. Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry,