Sleep-dependent learning and motor-skill complexity - PubMed (original) (raw)

Clinical Trial

. 2004 Nov-Dec;11(6):705-13.

doi: 10.1101/lm.76304.

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Clinical Trial

Sleep-dependent learning and motor-skill complexity

Kenichi Kuriyama et al. Learn Mem. 2004 Nov-Dec.

Abstract

Learning of a procedural motor-skill task is known to progress through a series of unique memory stages. Performance initially improves during training, and continues to improve, without further rehearsal, across subsequent periods of sleep. Here, we investigate how this delayed sleep-dependent learning is affected when the task characteristics are varied across several degrees of difficulty, and whether this improvement differentially enhances individual transitions of the motor-sequence pattern being learned. We report that subjects show similar overnight improvements in speed whether learning a five-element unimanual sequence (17.7% improvement), a nine-element unimanual sequence (20.2%), or a five-element bimanual sequence (17.5%), but show markedly increased overnight improvement (28.9%) with a nine-element bimanual sequence. In addition, individual transitions within the motor-sequence pattern that appeared most difficult at the end of training showed a significant 17.8% increase in speed overnight, whereas those transitions that were performed most rapidly at the end of training showed only a non-significant 1.4% improvement. Together, these findings suggest that the sleep-dependent learning process selectively provides maximum benefit to motor-skill procedures that proved to be most difficult prior to sleep.

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Figures

Figure 4.

Figure 4.

Motor-skill task configurations representing each of the four different experimental groups. The four different task configurations (corresponding to the four experimental groups) were varied across two different task characteristics - the limb complexity and the sequence length. (A) Group 1 performed a unimanual five-element configuration (four fingers, using one hand), (B) Group 2 performed a bimanual five-element configuration (four fingers, using two hands), (C) Group 3 performed a unimanual nine-element configuration (four fingers, using one hand), and (D) Group 4 performed a bimanual nine-element configuration (eight fingers, using two hands). For each sequence, individual transitions between successive key-press responses were mapped alphabetically, providing a within-sequence transition profile for each subject in each of the respective groups.

Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Differences in motor-skill speed across groups 1-4 during training and during retesting following sleep. Line graphs representing performance during initial training (trials 1-12, ♦), and during the three retest trials (R1-3, ⋄) for each of the four experimental groups (1-4; A,B,C,D, respectively). The fitted line of each graph represents the predicted (extrapolated) improvement rate based on the logarithmic regression across the 12 trials of training. Each line graph is accompanied by a corresponding summary bar graph representing the comparison between posttraining score (average of final three trials of training, open bar), and the retest score (average of three retest trials, filled bar). Error bars, SEM; Asterisks represent significance (P) compared with previous time point at: (*) < 0.05; (**) < 0.005.

Figure 2.

Figure 2.

Group difference in the overnight percentage improvement in transition speed occurring at the fastest and slowest transition positions. Prior to sleep, the fastest transition positions and slowest transition positions at the end of training were identified for each subject in each group, and following a night of sleep, the percentage change at each of these same two transitions positions was measured. A clear dissociation in overnight improvement was evident, with all groups exhibiting a consistent and large improvement following sleep for the slowest transition (light gray bars, problem point), but no group showing significant improvement for the fastest transition (dark-hatched gray bars). Error bars, SEM; Asterisks represent significance (P): (**) < 0.005; (n.s.) nonsignificant.

Figure 3.

Figure 3.

Representative single-subject examples of the pre- and postsleep transition profiles within sequences for each of the four groups. For an individual subject, in each of the groups (1-4, A,B,C,D, respectively), the pre-sleep transition profile (○) and the post-sleep transition profile (•) was calculated within each sequence. Pre-sleep profiles demonstrated considerable variability, with certain transitions being particularly slow (most difficult; problem points), whereas other transitions appear to be relatively rapid (easy). Yet, a prominent feature following a night of sleep, independent of the group/task, was a specific reduction (improvement) in the speed of the slowest problem-point transition, whereas the faster transitions prior to sleep showed a lack of consistent improvement following sleep.

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