Artificial intelligence in sleep medicine I: Diagnosis, treatment, care, and research
Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming sleep medicine (SM) through improved diagnostics, therapeutics, and research. AI enhances diagnostic accuracy, treatment personalization, workflow efficiency. However, implementation requires careful validation and oversight. This review explores AI applications across the sleep disorders spectrum. AI in diagnostic SM covers applications including polysomnography and home sleep testing. We examine how AI detects early neurodegenerative changes in REM sleep behavior disorder, identify novel biomarkers, and optimize chronotherapeutic timing. Wearables complement these advances by continuously monitoring sleep patterns, movement and physiological signals in natural settings, generating rich datasets ideal for AI analysis. In therapeutics, machine learning models enhance sleep apnea phenotyping, enabling precise treatment selection, and improve CPAP adherence prediction. AI helps identify biomarkers to optimize the timing of chronotherapeutic interventions. In medical care, natural language processing facilitates unstructured clinical chart data extraction. Implementation challenges include data standardization, algorithmic bias, and the "generalization gap." We provide a structured framework for clinical implementation, emphasizing validation requirements and ethical considerations. Large datasets using routine clinical care, cohort studies, and wearable derived data create vast amounts of data. In return, AI tools and methodologies enhance and expand development of phenotypes and endotypes with the final goal of personalized and precision SM.
Authors
- Amir Sharafkhaneh (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7893-2946)
- Max Hirshkowitz
- Henri Korkalainen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4686-6112)
- Chol Shin
- Ahmed BaHammam
- Javad Razjouyan
- Thomas Penzel
- Timo Leppanen
Institutions
- Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center (US)
- University of Eastern Finland (FI)
- King Saud Medical City (SA)
- King Saud University (SA)
- Kuopio University Hospital (FI)
- Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements (KR)
- Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin (DE)
- Stanford University (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Sleep Medicine Reviews
- Published
- 2026-04-17
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smrv.2026.102295
- Primary Topic
- Obstructive Sleep Apnea Research
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- NHLBI Division of Intramural Research