Dependence on REM sleep of overnight improvement of a perceptual skill.
Several paradigms of perceptual learning suggest that practice can trigger long-term, experience-dependent changes in the adult visual system of humans. As shown here, performance of a basic visual discrimination task improved after a normal night's sleep. Selective disruption of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep resulted in no performance gain during a comparable sleep interval, although non-REM slow-wave sleep disruption did not affect improvement. On the other hand, deprivation of REM sleep had no detrimental effects on the performance of a similar, but previously learned, task. These results indicate that a process of human memory consolidation, active during sleep, is strongly dependent on REM sleep.
Karni
A
A
Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
Tanne
D
D
Rubenstein
B S
BS
Askenasy
J J
JJ
Sagi
D
D
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D004568:Electrodiagnosis; D005260:Female; D005556:Form Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D012892:Sleep Deprivation / Q000502:physiology; D012894:Sleep Stages / Q000502:physiology; D012895:Sleep, REM / Q000502:physiology*