Daytime naps, motor memory consolidation and regionally specific sleep spindles.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Increasing evidence demonstrates that motor-skill memories improve across a night of sleep, and that non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep commonly plays a role in orchestrating these consolidation enhancements. Here we show the benefit of a daytime nap on motor memory consolidation and its relationship not simply with global sleep-stage measures, but unique characteristics of sleep spindles at regionally specific locations; mapping to the corresponding memory representation.

Methodology/principal findings

Two groups of subjects trained on a motor-skill task using their left hand - a paradigm known to result in overnight plastic changes in the contralateral, right motor cortex. Both groups trained in the morning and were tested 8 hr later, with one group obtaining a

SUBMITTER: Nishida M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1828623 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature