Question
How does sleep affect neuroplasticity?
Answer
It is thought that REM sleep is very important in motor memory consolidation. There have been studies done where they have compared people who learn motor skills and then gone through REM sleep with those that do a retention without the sleep period. They showed not just superior performance in those individuals who slept, but also all kinds of changes in their brain. For instance, it showed a high correlation of connectivity between premotor cortex and motor cortex, or supplementary motor cortex and motor cortex in those individuals who had REM sleep after the skill learning.
I remember when I was younger and stressed out about a test and crammed up to the last minute. I stayed up all night, but my mom always told me that it was important for me to go to sleep. We did not have the data associated with that at the time, but my mother was a neuroscientist, because in fact, there is a great deal of evidence that supports that sleep is very important. It is also a probable factor in why people with Parkinson’s disease have trouble with learning motor skills. We know that because of the medications they are taking and because of the disease itself, they have a lot of problems with sleep.
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