There are important differences between pediatric and adult sleep. This research focuses on two challenges arising from these differences. First, why do children not awaken when a fire alarm sounds during sleep? More specifically, children are significantly less likely to awaken to a residential tone smoke alarm during slow wave sleep compared to adults, yet they almost always wake up when a parent’s voice calls their name. To study this question, I developed a schematic diagram describing my hypothesis for the biological mechanisms behind this phenomenon. A mathematical model could be developed in future work.
A second question is whether loop gain of the ventilatory control system is a good predictor of a suppression of Cheyne-Stokes respiration with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) in pediatric patients. A novel technique was previously developed for calculating loop gain from duty ratio, leading to the hypothesis that loop gain is a distinguishing factor between adult patients who did and did not respond to CPAP. This research examines if the same technique will work with pediatric patients. I applied the technique to sleep data from a pediatric patient with periodic breathing and calculated an elevated loop gain beyond the threshold for response to CPAP. The effectiveness of CPAP in this child raises the question whether this same method is applicable to children. A study of the loop gain formula suggests that children in general do not have a higher loop gain, but rather this patient's high loop gain is due to other previous conditions.