Announcing the 2026 PhysioNet Challenge
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PhysioNet Challenge
Feb 10, 2026, 9:53:07 PMFeb 10
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Dear Community,
We are excited to announce the opening of the George B. Moody PhysioNet Challenge 2026. The 2026 Challenge invites teams to develop algorithms for using polysomnograms (PSGs) to predict cognitive impairment from sleep studies.
Sleep is a fundamental physiological process that is deeply intertwined with human health. Traditionally, clinicians use sleep studies to diagnose obstructive sleep apnea, insomnia, and other sleep disorders. However, sleep studies can also reveal other chronic conditions that cause, are caused by, or are correlated with physiological changes in sleep. These findings can provide context to sleep disorders and inform the early diagnosis and treatment of other health conditions.
We have shared multicenter Challenge training data containing EEG, ECG, and other physiological signals and algorithmic and human sleep annotations as well as an example Challenge entry that you can use as a template for your entries. We will open the scoring system in the coming days.
As in previous years, we have divided the Challenge into two phases: an unofficial phase and an official phase. The unofficial phase solicits feedback from the research community (i.e., you) to help us improve the Challenge for the official phase, so we require teams to register and participate in the unofficial phase of the Challenge for prize eligibility. Please enter early and often – we need you to look for quirks in our data, our scoring system, and otherwise. We are imperfect (and bandwidth-limited), so please send us suggestions via the forum (see below). We rely on the community to help us to improve the quality of the Challenge each year.
The culmination of the Challenge will be in Spain at the annual meeting of Computing in Cardiology, where we will present prizes at the closing ceremony.
We will post more information on the PhysioNet Challenge website and Challenge forum as it becomes available, or when your input helps us modify the boundaries and content. Please post questions and comments to the Challenge forum as well. However, if your question reveals information about your entry, then please email info [at] physionetchallenge.org instead to help us safeguard the diversity of approaches to the Challenge. We may share parts of our replies publicly if we feel that all Challengers should benefit from the information contained in our responses. We will not answer emails about the Challenge sent to other email addresses.
We thank you for your continued interest and support, and we hope that you enjoy the 2026 Challenge!
Best,
https://PhysioNetChallenges.org/
https://PhysioNet.org/
Please post questions and comments in the forum. However, if your question reveals information about your entry, then please email challenge at physionet.org. We may post parts of our reply publicly if we feel that all Challengers should benefit from it. We will not answer emails about the Challenge to any other address. This email is maintained by a group. Please do not email us individually.
We are excited to announce the opening of the George B. Moody PhysioNet Challenge 2026. The 2026 Challenge invites teams to develop algorithms for using polysomnograms (PSGs) to predict cognitive impairment from sleep studies.
Sleep is a fundamental physiological process that is deeply intertwined with human health. Traditionally, clinicians use sleep studies to diagnose obstructive sleep apnea, insomnia, and other sleep disorders. However, sleep studies can also reveal other chronic conditions that cause, are caused by, or are correlated with physiological changes in sleep. These findings can provide context to sleep disorders and inform the early diagnosis and treatment of other health conditions.
We have shared multicenter Challenge training data containing EEG, ECG, and other physiological signals and algorithmic and human sleep annotations as well as an example Challenge entry that you can use as a template for your entries. We will open the scoring system in the coming days.
Please see the Challenge website for the data, code, and more information, rules, and deadlines: https://physionetchallenges.org/2026/.
As in previous years, we have divided the Challenge into two phases: an unofficial phase and an official phase. The unofficial phase solicits feedback from the research community (i.e., you) to help us improve the Challenge for the official phase, so we require teams to register and participate in the unofficial phase of the Challenge for prize eligibility. Please enter early and often – we need you to look for quirks in our data, our scoring system, and otherwise. We are imperfect (and bandwidth-limited), so please send us suggestions via the forum (see below). We rely on the community to help us to improve the quality of the Challenge each year.
The culmination of the Challenge will be in Spain at the annual meeting of Computing in Cardiology, where we will present prizes at the closing ceremony.
We will post more information on the PhysioNet Challenge website and Challenge forum as it becomes available, or when your input helps us modify the boundaries and content. Please post questions and comments to the Challenge forum as well. However, if your question reveals information about your entry, then please email info [at] physionetchallenge.org instead to help us safeguard the diversity of approaches to the Challenge. We may share parts of our replies publicly if we feel that all Challengers should benefit from the information contained in our responses. We will not answer emails about the Challenge sent to other email addresses.
We thank you for your continued interest and support, and we hope that you enjoy the 2026 Challenge!
Best,
The Challenge Organizers
---
https://PhysioNet.org/
Please post questions and comments in the forum. However, if your question reveals information about your entry, then please email challenge at physionet.org. We may post parts of our reply publicly if we feel that all Challengers should benefit from it. We will not answer emails about the Challenge to any other address. This email is maintained by a group. Please do not email us individually.
Richard Povinelli
Feb 12, 2026, 8:16:03 AMFeb 12
to physionet-challenges
Greetings!
Glad to see another challenge. I looked at the evaluate model code to better understand the scoring. There doesn't seem to be something that considers the time to onset of cognitive decline. Is this accurate or am I looking in the wrong place?
Best regards,
Richard
PhysioNet Challenge
Feb 12, 2026, 8:19:44 AMFeb 12
to physionet-challenges
Dear Richard,
Thank you. We're happy to launch another Challenge!
Best,
Matt
(On behalf of the Challenge team.)
Please post questions and comments in the forum. However, if your question reveals information about your entry, then please email info at physionetchallenge.org. We may post parts of our reply publicly if we feel that all Challengers should benefit from it. We will not answer emails about the Challenge to any other address. This email is maintained by a group. Please do not email us individually.
Thank you. We're happy to launch another Challenge!
Yes, the current evaluation metric (AUROC between patients with a cognitive impairment diagnosis 3-7 years after the sleep study, and patients without a cognitive impairment diagnosis but at least 7 years of data after the sleep study) does not directly evaluate time to diagnosis of cognitive impairment, which is a noisy measurement of onset, but we are working to share the ICD codes and dates for the diagnoses, which should be informative.
Discussions are welcome, and we always welcome feedback about the evaluation metric, especially during the unofficial phase so that we can make improvements for the official phase.
Best,
Matt
(On behalf of the Challenge team.)
Please post questions and comments in the forum. However, if your question reveals information about your entry, then please email info at physionetchallenge.org. We may post parts of our reply publicly if we feel that all Challengers should benefit from it. We will not answer emails about the Challenge to any other address. This email is maintained by a group. Please do not email us individually.
Matthew Dupont
Feb 17, 2026, 3:49:56 PMFeb 17
to physionet-challenges
Hello again!
I'm excited to start this competition again!
Can I get some clarification with respect to two of the requirements in the license for the dataset?
(7) requires users to maintain certification in human research subject protection and HIPPA regulations. Is there a specific certification you're looking for? I've taken training on both topics, but it was a few years ago and don't recall a specific certification I would have obtained. In any case, if that's a hard requirement I think I'd want to take a refresher and/or align with the specific certification required.
(8) requires users to make code using the dataset open to the research community, while rule 4 of the competition's rules on competing teams/collaboration requires repositories to be private at least for the duration of the contest. I have to imagine those rules in conjunction require us to keep our repository private during the competition, but open after its close?
I doubt either will be a serious issue, but I wasn't sure, so I figured I'd ask on here.
Thanks again for putting on the competition!
Matt
I'm excited to start this competition again!
Can I get some clarification with respect to two of the requirements in the license for the dataset?
(7) requires users to maintain certification in human research subject protection and HIPPA regulations. Is there a specific certification you're looking for? I've taken training on both topics, but it was a few years ago and don't recall a specific certification I would have obtained. In any case, if that's a hard requirement I think I'd want to take a refresher and/or align with the specific certification required.
(8) requires users to make code using the dataset open to the research community, while rule 4 of the competition's rules on competing teams/collaboration requires repositories to be private at least for the duration of the contest. I have to imagine those rules in conjunction require us to keep our repository private during the competition, but open after its close?
I doubt either will be a serious issue, but I wasn't sure, so I figured I'd ask on here.
Thanks again for putting on the competition!
Matt
PhysioNet Challenge
Feb 17, 2026, 3:50:59 PMFeb 17
to physionet-challenges
Dear Matt,
Thanks for the questions - engagement at this point of the Challenge is really important to us.
The license and conditions are not set by us, but are inherited from the Human Sleep Project, which is the source of this year's Challenge data: https://bdsp.io/content/hsp/2.0/.
As you noted, we request that you do not share your code outside your team until during the Challenge to maintain independence between the code bases. However, after the Challenge, you are both able and welcome to share your code. The license does require you to open-source any code that you write to process the data, but you don't need to open-source it in real time, and it is sufficient to open-source your code after the end of the Challenge.
It is up to you to interpret and implement the guidelines regarding human subject training and HIPAA-related regulations. We encourage you to refresh your knowledge if you feel that it's necessary, and there are many ways to maintain this important knowledge, but we do not want the lack of specific documentation to be a barrier to participation.
Best,
Matt
(On behalf of the Challenge team.)
Please post questions and comments in the forum. However, if your question reveals information about your entry, then please email info at physionetchallenge.org. We may post parts of our reply publicly if we feel that all Challengers should benefit from it. We will not answer emails about the Challenge to any other address. This email is maintained by a group. Please do not email us individually.
Thanks for the questions - engagement at this point of the Challenge is really important to us.
The license and conditions are not set by us, but are inherited from the Human Sleep Project, which is the source of this year's Challenge data: https://bdsp.io/content/hsp/2.0/.
As you noted, we request that you do not share your code outside your team until during the Challenge to maintain independence between the code bases. However, after the Challenge, you are both able and welcome to share your code. The license does require you to open-source any code that you write to process the data, but you don't need to open-source it in real time, and it is sufficient to open-source your code after the end of the Challenge.
It is up to you to interpret and implement the guidelines regarding human subject training and HIPAA-related regulations. We encourage you to refresh your knowledge if you feel that it's necessary, and there are many ways to maintain this important knowledge, but we do not want the lack of specific documentation to be a barrier to participation.
Best,
Matt
(On behalf of the Challenge team.)
Please post questions and comments in the forum. However, if your question reveals information about your entry, then please email info at physionetchallenge.org. We may post parts of our reply publicly if we feel that all Challengers should benefit from it. We will not answer emails about the Challenge to any other address. This email is maintained by a group. Please do not email us individually.
PhysioNet Challenge
Feb 18, 2026, 10:55:46 AM (13 days ago) Feb 18
to physionet-challenges
Dear Challenge Teams,
We are now accepting submissions to the unofficial phase of the PhysioNet Challenge 2026. Please read the submission instructions, double-check your code, and submit an entry when ready:
Best,
Matt
---
https://PhysioNet.org/
Please post questions and comments in the forum. However, if your question reveals information about your entry, then please email challenge at physionet.org. We may post parts of our reply publicly if we feel that all Challengers should benefit from it. We will not answer emails about the Challenge to any other address. This email is maintained by a group. Please do not email us individually.
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