Enhanced Spontaneous Oscillations in the Supplementary Motor Area Are Associated with Sleep-Dependent Offline Learning of Finger-Tapping Motor-Sequence Task
Year: 2013
Type: article
Abstract: Sleep is beneficial for various types of learning and memory, including a finger-tapping motor-sequence task. However, methodological issues hinder clarification of the crucial cortical regions for sleep-dependent consolidation in motor-sequence learning. Here, to investigate the core cortical region for sleep-dependent consolidation of finger-tapping motor-sequence learning, while human subjects were asleep, we measured spontaneous cortical oscillations by magnetoencephalography together with polysomnography, and source-localized the origins of oscillations using individual anatomical brain information from MRI. First, we confirmed that performance of the task at a retest session after sleep significantly increased compared with performance at the training session before sleep. Second, spontaneous δ and fast-σ oscillations significantly increased in the supplementary motor area (SMA) during post-training compared with pretraining sleep, showing significant and high correlation with the performance increase. Third, the increased spontaneous oscillations in the SMA correlated with performance improvement were specific to slow-wave sleep. We also found that correlations of δ oscillation between the SMA and the prefrontal and between the SMA and the parietal regions tended to decrease after training. These results suggest that a core brain region for sleep-dependent consolidation of the finger-tapping motor-sequence learning resides in the SMA contralateral to the trained hand and is mediated by spontaneous δ and fast-σ oscillations, especially during slow-wave sleep. The consolidation may arise along with possible reorganization of a larger-scale cortical network that involves the SMA and cortical regions outside the motor regions, including prefrontal and parietal regions.
Source: Journal of Neuroscience
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Funders: National Science Foundation, Massachusetts General Hospital, Brown University, Sleep Research Society, Sleep Research Society Foundation, Centre d'Imagerie BioMédicale, National Institutes of Health, Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, National Institute on Aging, National Institute of Mental Health, National Eye Institute, National Center for Research Resources
Awards: Elekta Neuromag Electronics Upgrade, The Mechanisms of Perceptual Learning, G1220546045, Aging and Perceptual Learning: Behavioral and fMRI Studies, Perceptual Learning and Sleep, Consolidation of Visual Perceptual Learning During Sleep, G3549079774, Perception of Object Motion from Optical, Binocular and Scene Information, G4759711736, Center for Functional Imaging Technologies, G593577925, G5951230003, G653110949, A Siemens MAGNETOTOM Trio 3 Tesla MRI System, G8201733844, A Storage Area Network for Structural and Functional Image Analysis, Systematic Psychophysical Investigation of Visual Learning, G974088082
OpenAlex ID: W1991538007