title: Impaired off-line motor skills consolidation in young primary insomniacs.
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.
authors: Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, Via Venezia 8, 35131 Padova, Italy. Electronic address: cellini.nicola@gmail.com.
authors: Nicola
authors: N
authors: Cellini
authors: Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, Via Venezia 8, 35131 Padova, Italy; Center for Health Sciences, SRI International, 333 Ravenswood Avenue, Menlo Park 94043, CA, USA. Electronic address: massimiliano.dezambotti@sri.com.
authors: Massimiliano
authors: M
authors: de Zambotti
authors: Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, Via Venezia 8, 35131 Padova, Italy. Electronic address: Covassin.Naima@mayo.edu.
authors: Naima
authors: N
authors: Covassin
authors: Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, Via Venezia 8, 35131 Padova, Italy. Electronic address: michela.sarlo@unipd.it.
authors: Michela
authors: M
authors: Sarlo
authors: Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, Via Venezia 8, 35131 Padova, Italy. Electronic address: luciano.stegagno@unipd.it.
authors: Luciano
authors: L
authors: Stegagno
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D009048:Motor Skills / Q000502:physiology*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D017286:Polysomnography; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D007319:Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Finger tapping task; Insomnia; Memory consolidation; Motor skills; Procedural memory; Sleep