American black bears sleep twice as much during hibernation periods as during summer months, spending just 1/3 of this time awake, per machine-learning analysis of data from captive bears recorded over a period of 5 years
Article URL : https://plos.io/4pESF9H
Article title: Automated sleep scoring in hibernating and non-hibernating American black bears
Author countries: US, UK, Australia.
Funding: Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Center Award Number [P20GM130443]. NIGMS provided institutional infrastructure and salary support for U.S. personnel (ØT), but played no role in study design, data collection, or the decision to publish. No NIH grant funds, COBRE center core resources, or domestic materials supported the co-authors (PJNB, YGH, GA), who participated strictly in a voluntary advisory and editorial capacity from their home institution outside the United States. Somnivore Pty Ltd provided unconditional access to the Somnivore software free of charge and did not provide direct financial support for this study. Collection of the data set analyzed in this study was supported by U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command awards W81XWH-06-1-0121 (to BMB) and W81XWH-09-2-0134 (to BMB), and by National Science Foundation award IOS-1147232 (to BMB). Thus 100% of the funding received for this work came from US federal sources.
PLOS One
Automated sleep scoring in hibernating and non-hibernating American black bears
5-Aug-2026
GA has a financial interest in Somnivore Pty Ltd as one of the founders. The company did not provide any direct financial support to the study beyond providing unconditional free use of the software and did not take any part in the data collection from the animals. GA participated in the design of the tests on an academic basis on terms with other members of the group. Somnivore Pty Ltd. only benefited from this collaboration by gaining experience with the application of the software to analyze data from an unusual animal model. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS One policies on sharing data and materials. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.