The potential of home cage monitoring to screen mice for sleep disturbances

Sleep disturbances are common in the general population and even more common as symptoms and comorbidities in many neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders like Alzheimer's Disease, Parkinson's Disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Myotonic Dystrophies, Autism, Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder, Major Depression. It is therefore crucial to develop high-throughput screens to detect such disturbances in mouse models of human diseases. Home cage monitoring systems can be the optimal tools to assess circadian and sleep-wake cycle phenotypes and the IMPC can be an invaluable setting where to develop and implement this type of phenotyping screen. As examples, data from two mouse models will be presented to illustrate the potential of home cage monitoring in detecting common sleep disturbances.