Abstract
Compelling evidence indicates that sleep can facilitate the off-line consolidation of declarative, perceptual, emotional and procedural memories. Here we assessed the sleep-related off-line consolidation of motor skills in 13 young primary insomniacs (23.31. ±. 2.5 yrs) compared to 13 healthy sleepers (24.31. ±. 1.6 yrs) using the sequential finger tapping task. During a training session insomniacs performed less correct sequences than controls. However, both groups exhibited similar on-line motor learning in the pre-sleep evening session. After a night of sleep, healthy controls improved their performance, indicating an overnight effect of sleep on motor skills consolidation. In contrast, insomniacs failed to exhibit a sleep-related enhancement in memory performance indicating impairment in the off-line motor skills consolidation process. Our results suggest that young adults with insomnia experience impaired off-line memory consolidation which seems not to be associated with reduced ability to acquire new motor information.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 141-147 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Neurobiology of Learning and Memory |
Volume | 114 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Oct 2014 |
Keywords
- Finger tapping task
- Insomnia
- Memory consolidation
- Motor skills
- Procedural memory
- Sleep
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Behavioral Neuroscience