The impact of diurnal sleep on the consolidation of a complex gross motor adaptation task

Abstract

Diurnal sleep effects on consolidation of a complex, ecological valid gross motor adaptation task were examined using a bicycle with an inverse steering device. We tested 24 male subjects aged between 20 and 29 years using a between-subjects design. Participants were trained to adapt to the inverse steering bicycle during 45 min. Performance was tested before (TEST1) and after (TEST2) training, as well as after a 2 h retention interval (TEST3). During retention, participants either slept or remained awake. To assess gross motor performance, subjects had to ride the inverse steering bicycle 3 × 30 m straight-line and 3 × 30 m through a slalom. Beyond riding time, we sophisticatedly measured performance accuracy (standard deviation of steering angle) in both conditions using a rotatory potentiometer. A significant decrease of accuracy during straight-line riding after nap and wakefulness was shown. Accuracy during slalom riding remained stable after wakefulness but was reduced after sleep. We found that the duration of rapid eye movement sleep as well as sleep spindle activity are negatively related with gross motor performance changes over sleep. Together these findings suggest that the consolidation of adaptation to a new steering device does not benefit from a 2 h midday nap. We speculate that in case of strongly overlearned motor patterns such as normal cycling, diurnal sleep spindles and rapid eye movement sleep might even help to protect everyday needed skills, and to rapidly forget newly acquired, interfering and irrelevant material.

Selective improvements in balancing associated with offline periods of spaced training

“…Examples from gross motor skills studies confirm that when an explicit help is provided, the performance improves after a night of sleep but not following wakefulness intervals 23 , 31 , 33 , 40 . Conversely, an effect from time intervals during wakefulness appears when subjects perform complex motor tasks using implicit processes 32 , 34 .…”

Suppression-induced forgetting diminishes following a delay of either sleep or wake

“…There are, however, studies that have found REM sleep to be correlated with forgetting in other kind of paradigms after similarly short sleep durations (e.g. Oudiette et al, 2013;Hoedlmoser et al, 2015).…”

“…REM duration has further been found to be associated with selectively increasing memory performance for items for which a low reward was expected, but not items for which a higher reward was expected (Oudiette et al, 2013), decreasing the retrieval-induced forgetting effect (Baran et al, 2010) and in decreasing performance on a task consisting of riding a bicycle with a reversed steering device (something that would require the inhibition of the "normal" way of riding a bicycle; Hoedlmoser et al, 2015). These results could be viewed as support for REM sleep having a role in decreasing inhibition, and increasing memory performance for items that would otherwise be forgotten.…”

Motor Performance Is not Enhanced by Daytime Naps in Older Adults

“…No sleep-dependent gains could be shown after a daytime nap in younger adults. Similarly no nap-dependent improvements could be shown in young adults for an adaptive whole body movement task (a reverse bicycle steering task; Hoedlmoser et al, 2014 ). On the other hand previous, especially motor adaptation studies implementing whole hand or whole body movements, showed sleep-dependent consolidation in older adults over night (Al-Sharman and Siengsukon, 2014 ; Mantua et al, 2016 ).…”