Adult Gross Motor Learning and Sleep: Is There a Mutual Benefit?

Abstract

Posttraining consolidation, also known as offline learning, refers to neuroplastic processes and systemic reorganization by which newly acquired skills are converted from an initially transient state into a more permanent state. An extensive amount of research on cognitive and fine motor tasks has shown that sleep is able to enhance these processes, resulting in more stable declarative and procedural memory traces. On the other hand, limited evidence exists concerning the relationship between sleep and learning of gross motor skills. We are particularly interested in this relationship with the learning of gross motor skills in adulthood, such as in the case of sports, performing arts, devised experimental tasks, and rehabilitation practice. Thus, the present review focuses on sleep and gross motor learning (GML) in adults. The literature on the impact of sleep on GML, the consequences of sleep deprivation, and the influence of GML on sleep architecture were evaluated for this review. While sleep has proven to be beneficial for most gross motor tasks, sleep deprivation in turn has not always resulted in performance decay. Furthermore, correlations between motor performance and sleep parameters have been found. These results are of potential importance for integrating sleep in physiotherapeutic interventions, especially for patients with impaired gross motor functions.

Acquisition and consolidation of sequential footstep movements with physical and motor imagery practice

“…This hypothesis is supported by studies demonstrating that gross motor learning (such as whole-body postural tasks) may need extensive training to reach asymptotic performance. 3,40 Overall, our findings reinforce the current idea that explicit sequential knowledge is not sufficient to trigger sleep-dependent consolidation processes. 2 The level of complexity of the motor learning, as well as retesting at 24 hours, should be further explored in future investigations using complex motor paradigms.…”

“…2 Contrasting with this extensive literature on SFTTs, only a few studies have been devoted to exploring the acquisition and consolidation effects in sequential gross movements and even fewer when the lower limbs were involved. 3 This lack in the motor learning literature is surprising, as many of our daily activities require sequential lower-limb movements, and these become even more important in both sport and clinical contexts (eg, functional rehabilitation). Therefore, there is a crucial need to examine whether findings from SFTTs may be generalized to other sequential gross motor tasks using different effectors and closer to an ecological context.…”

“…To address this issue, various fundamental and ecological gross motor paradigms have been used, from uni-and bimanual to whole-body movements. 3 The plurality of gross motor paradigms developed so far has revealed inconsistencies in the findings, especially related to sleep-dependent consolidation. [4][5][6] For instance, Genzel et al 7 reported sleep-dependent gains in performance following sequential motor learning with the lower limbs (ie, dance choreography), while no-sleep benefits were observed following whole-body motor adaptation (ie, learning to ride an inverted-steering bicycle).…”

“…Using the well‐known explicit sequential finger‐tapping task (SFTT), accumulated evidence has reported fast improvement of performance during acquisition and sleep‐dependent gain in performance 2 . Contrasting with this extensive literature on SFTTs, only a few studies have been devoted to exploring the acquisition and consolidation effects in sequential gross movements and even fewer when the lower limbs were involved 3 . This lack in the motor learning literature is surprising, as many of our daily activities require sequential lower‐limb movements, and these become even more important in both sport and clinical contexts (eg, functional rehabilitation).…”

Sleep Macrostructure and NREM Sleep Instability Analysis in Pediatric Developmental Coordination Disorder

“…There are more studies about the role of sleep in motor ability and motor learning [12,22] at any age of life [22,23]. Particularly, an interesting report of Bothe et al [22] in 2018 showed the impact of sleep on gross motor adaptation in a group of adolescents with typical developing profile, pinpointing the role of an increase in REM sleep on cortico-cerebellar network activity that organizes dynamic aspects of movement such as motor coordination.…”