Deep sleep maintains learning efficiency of the human brain

Sara Fattinger, Toon T. de Beukelaar, Kathy L. Ruddy, Carina Volk, Natalie C. Heyse, Joshua A. Herbst, Richard H. R. Hahnloser, Nicole Wenderoth () and Reto Huber ()
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Sara Fattinger: Child Development Center, University Children’s Hospital Zurich
Toon T. de Beukelaar: Movement Control and Neuroplasticity Research Group
Kathy L. Ruddy: Neural Control of Movement Lab, ETH Zurich
Carina Volk: Child Development Center, University Children’s Hospital Zurich
Natalie C. Heyse: Child Development Center, University Children’s Hospital Zurich
Joshua A. Herbst: Institute of Neuroinformatics, University of Zurich and ETH Zurich
Richard H. R. Hahnloser: Neuroscience Center Zurich (ZNZ), University of Zurich
Nicole Wenderoth: Neuroscience Center Zurich (ZNZ), University of Zurich
Reto Huber: Child Development Center, University Children’s Hospital Zurich

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-14

Abstract: Abstract It is hypothesized that deep sleep is essential for restoring the brain’s capacity to learn efficiently, especially in regions heavily activated during the day. However, causal evidence in humans has been lacking due to the inability to sleep deprive one target area while keeping the natural sleep pattern intact. Here we introduce a novel approach to focally perturb deep sleep in motor cortex, and investigate the consequences on behavioural and neurophysiological markers of neuroplasticity arising from dedicated motor practice. We show that the capacity to undergo neuroplastic changes is reduced by wakefulness but restored during unperturbed sleep. This restorative process is markedly attenuated when slow waves are selectively perturbed in motor cortex, demonstrating that deep sleep is a requirement for maintaining sustainable learning efficiency.

Date: 2017
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15405

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