Sleep-Dependent Improvement in Visuomotor Learning: A Causal Role for Slow Waves

作者：Domenica Crupi, Brad K. Hulse, Michael J. Peterson, Reto Huber, Hidayath Ansari, Michael Coen, Chiara Cirelli, Ruth M. Benca, M. F. Ghilardi, Giulio Tononi · 发表于：SLEEP · 年份：2009 · DOI：10.1093/sleep/32.10.1273 · 被引用次数：230 · 研究领域：Sleep and Wakefulness Research、Sleep and Work-Related Fatigue、EEG and Brain-Computer Interfaces

STUDY OBJECTIVES: Sleep after learning often benefits memory consolidation, but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. In previous studies, we found that learning a visuomotor task is followed by an increase in sleep slow wave activity (SWA, the electroencephalographic [EEG] power density between 0.5 and 4.5 Hz during non-rapid eye movement sleep) over the right parietal cortex. The SWA increase correlates with the postsleep improvement in visuomotor performance, suggesting that SWA may be causally responsible for the consolidation of visuomotor learning. Here, we tested this hypothesis by studying the effects of slow wave deprivation (SWD). DESIGN: After learning the task, subjects went to sleep, and acoustic stimuli were timed either to suppress slow waves (SWD) or to interfere as little as possible with spontaneous slow waves (control acoustic stimulation, CAS). SETTING: Sound-attenuated research room. PARTICIPANTS: Healthy subjects (mean age 24.6 +/- 1.0 years; n = 9 for EEG analysis, n = 12 for behavior analysis; 3 women). MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS: Sleep time and efficiency were not affected, whereas SWA and the number of slow waves decreased in SWD relative to CAS. Relative to the night before, visuomotor performance significantly improved in the CAS condition (+5.93% +/- 0.88%) but not in the SWD condition (-0.77% +/- 1.16%), and the direct CAS vs SWD comparison showed a significant difference (P = 0.0007, n = 12, paired t test). Changes in visuomotor performance af...