Sleep effect on memory for movement

Introduction: Recent works on learning and sleep considered the possible effect of sleep on motor skill learning (Laureys, 2002). Procedural memory, including that one required in many sports, is impaired by the loss of stage 2 sleep and sleep has been reported to have an effect in learning sport techniques (Walker, 2005). So far no studies have been found to be investigating the sleep effect on a functional movement, such as a newly learned sport technique and its relationship with small movements learning in the same subject. The aim of this work was to investigate the effect of sleep on fine and complex (sport) movements. Methods: we studied a group of subjects in a finger tapping task as proposed by Walker (2005) in order to investigate the sleep effect on a motor performance. The motor task required subjects to complete twelve 30 sec. sequential finger-tapping trials. Training and task were performed either in the morning or in the evening and each subject subsequently underwent a specific schedule of retest (12/24h after training). Results: The preliminary results on the finger tapping task showed that speed seems to be slightly improved after a night of sleep (p=0.02) but no significant differences were found for accuracy. Sleep deprivation seems to affect just the accuracy, leading to a worse performance (p=0.09). Conclusions: Results can be useful in assessing and planning better trainings in sport and rehabilitation