OBJECTIVES: To determine whether sleep benefits motor memory in healthy elderly adults and, if so, whether the observed sleep-related benefits are comparable with those observed in healthy young adults. DESIGN: Repeated-measures cross-over design. SETTING: Boston, Massachusetts (general community) and Harvard University. PARTICIPANTS: Sixteen healthy older and 15 healthy young participants. MEASUREMENTS: Motor sequence task (MST) performance was assessed at training and at the beginning and end of the retest session; polysomnographic sleep studies were recorded for the elderly participants. RESULTS: After 12 hours of daytime wakefulness, elderly participants showed a dramatic decline in MST performance on the first three retest trials, and only a nonsignificant improvement by the end of retest (the last 3 retest trials). In contrast, when the same participants trained in the morning but were retested 24 hours after training, after a day of wake plus a night of sleep, they maintained their performance at the beginning of retest and demonstrated a highly significant 17.4% improvement by the end of the retest session, essentially identical to the 17.3% improvement seen in young participants. These strikingly similar improvements occurred despite the presence of other age-related differences, including overall slower motor speed, a lag in the appearance of sleep-dependent improvement, and an absence of correlations between overnight improvement and sleep architecture or sleep spindle density in the elderly participants. CONCLUSION: These findings provide compelling evidence that sleep optimizes motor skill performance across the adult life span.
OBJECTIVES: To determine whether sleep benefits motor memory in healthy elderly adults and, if so, whether the observed sleep-related benefits are comparable with those observed in healthy young adults. DESIGN: Repeated-measures cross-over design. SETTING: Boston, Massachusetts (general community) and Harvard University. PARTICIPANTS: Sixteen healthy older and 15 healthy young participants. MEASUREMENTS: Motor sequence task (MST) performance was assessed at training and at the beginning and end of the retest session; polysomnographic sleep studies were recorded for the elderly participants. RESULTS: After 12 hours of daytime wakefulness, elderly participants showed a dramatic decline in MST performance on the first three retest trials, and only a nonsignificant improvement by the end of retest (the last 3 retest trials). In contrast, when the same participants trained in the morning but were retested 24 hours after training, after a day of wake plus a night of sleep, they maintained their performance at the beginning of retest and demonstrated a highly significant 17.4% improvement by the end of the retest session, essentially identical to the 17.3% improvement seen in young participants. These strikingly similar improvements occurred despite the presence of other age-related differences, including overall slower motor speed, a lag in the appearance of sleep-dependent improvement, and an absence of correlations between overnight improvement and sleep architecture or sleep spindle density in the elderly participants. CONCLUSION: These findings provide compelling evidence that sleep optimizes motor skill performance across the adult life span.
Authors: Dara S Manoach; Matthew S Cain; Mark G Vangel; Anjali Khurana; Donald C Goff; Robert Stickgold Journal: Biol Psychiatry Date: 2004-12-15 Impact factor: 13.382
Authors: Joyce A Walsleben; Vishesh K Kapur; Anne B Newman; Eyal Shahar; Richard R Bootzin; Carl E Rosenberg; George O'Connor; F Javier Nieto Journal: Sleep Date: 2004-03-15 Impact factor: 5.849
Authors: Matthew P Walker; Tiffany Brakefield; Joshua Seidman; Alexandra Morgan; J Allan Hobson; Robert Stickgold Journal: Learn Mem Date: 2003 Jul-Aug Impact factor: 2.460
Authors: Bryce A Mander; Alyssa H Zhu; John R Lindquist; Sylvia Villeneuve; Vikram Rao; Brandon Lu; Jared M Saletin; Sonia Ancoli-Israel; William J Jagust; Matthew P Walker Journal: J Neurosci Date: 2017-10-30 Impact factor: 6.167
Authors: Anna C Schapiro; Allison G Reid; Alexandra Morgan; Dara S Manoach; Mieke Verfaellie; Robert Stickgold Journal: Hippocampus Date: 2019-06-03 Impact factor: 3.899
Authors: Erin J Wamsley; Matthew A Tucker; Ann K Shinn; Kim E Ono; Sophia K McKinley; Alice V Ely; Donald C Goff; Robert Stickgold; Dara S Manoach Journal: Biol Psychiatry Date: 2011-10-02 Impact factor: 13.382
Authors: Kristine A Wilckens; Martica H Hall; Robert D Nebes; Timothy H Monk; Daniel J Buysse Journal: Behav Sleep Med Date: 2015-08-31 Impact factor: 2.964