Department of Physiological Sciences "G. Moruzzi", University of Pisa, Via San Zeno 31, 56127 Pisa, Italy.
Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2011 Dec;11(4):541-50. doi: 10.3758/s13415-011-0052-z.
Sleep is known to contribute to motor memory consolidation. Recent studies have provided evidence that a night of sleep plays a similar functional role following motor imagery (MI), while the simple passage of time does not result in performance gains. Here, we examined the benefits of a daytime nap on motor memory consolidation after MI practice. Participants were trained by MI on an explicitly known sequence of finger movements at 11:00. Half of the participants were then subjected (at 14:00) to either a short nap (10 min of stage 2 sleep) or a long nap (60-90 min, including slow wave sleep and rapid eye movement sleep). We also collected data from both quiet and active rest control groups. All participants remained in the lab until being retested at 16:00. The data revealed that a daytime nap after imagery practice improved motor performance and, therefore, facilitated motor memory consolidation, as compared with spending a similar time interval in the wake state. Interestingly, the results revealed that both short and long naps resulted in similar delayed performance gains. The data might also suggest that the presence of slow wave and rapid eye movement sleep does not provide additional benefits for the sleep-dependent motor skill consolidation following MI practice.
睡眠有助于运动记忆的巩固。最近的研究提供了证据，表明睡眠在运动意象（MI）后发挥着类似的功能作用，而单纯的时间流逝并不会导致表现的提高。在这里，我们研究了在 MI 练习后白天小睡对运动记忆巩固的益处。参与者在 11:00 时通过 MI 训练一个明确的手指运动序列。然后，一半的参与者（在 14:00）接受短午睡（2 期睡眠 10 分钟）或长午睡（60-90 分钟，包括慢波睡眠和快速眼动睡眠）。我们还从安静和主动休息对照组收集数据。所有参与者都留在实验室，直到 16:00 进行重新测试。数据显示，与在清醒状态下花费相似的时间间隔相比，在 MI 练习后进行白天小睡可以提高运动表现，从而促进运动记忆的巩固。有趣的是，结果表明，短睡和长睡都导致了相似的延迟表现提高。数据还可能表明，在 MI 练习后，慢波和快速眼动睡眠的存在并不能为睡眠依赖性运动技能巩固提供额外的益处。
