Neural ensemble reactivation in rapid eye movement and slow-wave sleep coordinate with muscle activity to promote rapid motor skill learning.

ABSTRACT: Neural activity patterns of recent experiences are reactivated during sleep in structures critical for memory storage, including hippocampus and neocortex. This reactivation process is thought to aid memory consolidation. Although synaptic rearrangement dynamics following learning involve an interplay between slow-wave sleep (SWS) and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, most physiological evidence implicates SWS directly following experience as a preferred window for reactivation. Here, we show that reactivation occurs in both REM and SWS and that coordination of REM and SWS activation on the same day is associated with rapid learning of a motor skill. We performed 6 h recordings from cells in rats' motor cortex as they were trained daily on a skilled reaching task. In addition to SWS followin

SUBMITTER: Eckert MJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7209913 | biostudies-literature | 2020 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature