It's Practice, with Sleep, that Makes Perfect: Implications of Sleep-Dependent Learning and Plasticity for Skill Performance

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Clinics in Sports Medicine
Volume 24, Issue 2, April 2005, Pages 301-317
Sports Chronobiology: It's About Time

Copyright © 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

It's Practice, with Sleep, that Makes Perfect: Implications of Sleep-Dependent Learning and Plasticity for Skill Performance

Matthew P. Walker PhDa, Corresponding Author Contact Information, E-mail The Corresponding Author and Robert Stickgold PhDb

aSleep and Neuroimaging, Center for Sleep and Cognition, Department of Psychiatry, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, 330 Brookline Avenue, Boston, MA 02215, USA

bCenter for Sleep and Cognition, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, 330 Brookline Avenue, Boston, MA 02215, USA

Available online 28 April 2005.

Although there is no consensus regarding the functions of sleep, one exciting hypothesis is that sleep contributes importantly to learning and memory. Over the last decade, several studies have provided substantive evidence supporting the role of sleep in memory processing. This article focuses on sleep-dependent learning and brain plasticity in humans, specifically in the development of skill performance that is the foundation of many sports actions. The different forms and stages of human memory are discussed, then evidence of sleep-dependent skill learning and associated sleep-dependent brain plasticity is described. In conclusion, a consideration of the fundamental importance of sleep in real-life skill learning is provided.

Article Outline

Definitions

Memory categories
Memory stages

Behavioral studies of sleep and memory

Motor learning and overnight sleep
Perceptual learning and overnight sleep
Daytime naps and skill learning
Intermediate summary

Sleep-dependent brain plasticity

Modification of post-training sleep and brain activation
Overnight reorganization of memory representations
Intermediate summary

Summary and implications
Acknowledgements
References

This work was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (MH 48,832, MH 65,292, MH 69,935, and MH 67,754) and the National Science Foundation (BCS-0121953).

Corresponding Author Contact InformationCorresponding author