Dependence on REM Sleep of Overnight Improvement of a Perceptual Skill

TLDR

Several paradigms of perceptual learning suggest that practice can trigger long‑term, experience‑dependent changes in the adult visual system of humans. The study shows that a normal night's sleep enhances performance on a basic visual discrimination task, but this improvement is abolished when REM sleep is selectively disrupted, whereas non‑REM slow‑wave sleep disruption has no effect, indicating that REM sleep is essential for the consolidation of new perceptual skills.

Abstract

Several paradigms of perceptual learning suggest that practice can trigger long-term, experience-dependent changes in the adult visual system of humans. As shown here, performance of a basic visual discrimination task improved after a normal night's sleep. Selective disruption of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep resulted in no performance gain during a comparable sleep interval, although non-REM slow-wave sleep disruption did not affect improvement. On the other hand, deprivation of REM sleep had no detrimental effects on the performance of a similar, but previously learned, task. These results indicate that a process of human memory consolidation, active during sleep, is strongly dependent on REM sleep.