# Demographic-Aware Transfer Learning for Sleep Stage Classification in Clinical Polysomnography

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.02245 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.02245/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 6 of its 32 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 4 May 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)
- [DeepSleepNet: a Model for Automatic Sleep Stage Scoring based on Raw Single-Channel EEG](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.04046/) (2017)
- [SleepEEGNet: Automated Sleep Stage Scoring with Sequence to Sequence Deep Learning Approach](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.02108/) (2019)
- [Towards More Accurate Automatic Sleep Staging via Deep Transfer Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.13177/) (2019)
- [L-SeqSleepNet: Whole-cycle Long Sequence Modelling for Automatic Sleep Staging](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.03441/) (2023)
- [Robust Building Damage Detection in Cross-Disaster Settings Using Domain Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.14694/) (2026)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [CardioMeta: Calibrated Multi-Task Prediction of Diabetes, Hypertension, and Cardiovascular Disease Across Population and EHR Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.15721/) (2026)
- [NanoSleep: A Parameter-Efficient Hybrid Temporal Convolutional Network for Single-Channel Sleep Stage Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.18571/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Automated sleep stage classification typically employs a single population-agnostic model, disregarding established demographic variations in sleep architecture. Sleep patterns, however, differ substantially across gender, age, and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) severity, indicating that a onesize-fits all approach may be suboptimal for diverse clinical populations. In this paper, we propose a two stage training strategy based on demographic stratification and transfer learning framework. We first pretrains a convolutional recurrent model on the full population and then fine tunes it independently for demographic subgroups defined by gender, age, and Apnea-Hypopnea Index (AHI) severity according to the AASM clinical standard. Using the DREAMT dataset comprising 100 clinical subjects and 7 PSG channels, we evaluate 37 fine-tuned configurations across single-axis and two-way demographic combinations. Results demonstrate that 35 of the 37 fine-tuned models outperform the baseline, with Cohen's kappa improvements ranging from 0.9 to 12.9%. These findings indicate that stratified fine tuning tailored to specific patient demographics yields substantially more accurate sleep staging than a single generalized model, offering a practical and clinically grounded paradigm for personalized sleep assessment.