DEPENDENCE ON REM-SLEEP OF OVERNIGHT IMPROVEMENT OF A PERCEPTUAL SKILL

Several paradigms of perceptual learning suggest that practice can tri gger long-term, experience-dependent changes in the adult visual syste m of humans. As shown here, performance of a basic visual discriminati on 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 disrupt ion 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 hum an memory consolidation, active during sleep, is strongly dependent on REM sleep.