Sleep and Hypnosis: A Journal of Clinical Neuroscience and Psychopathology January 2006 8(2):41-46
D. Erlacher
Michael Schredl, Central Institute of Mental Health
Previous research has shown that learning of procedural tasks enhance REM sleep. An experiment in which eleven subjects either learned a motor task or engaged in a control task was carried out in a balanced within-design to investigate whether motor learning would affect sleep. An initial laboratory adaptation night and two experimental nights were consecutive. The results indicate that learning a motor task exerts no effect on REM sleep parameters and, therefore, the results do no support the hypothesis that learning a procedural skill is related to an increase in REM sleep parameters. One might speculate that the motor learning was not intense enough in comparison to other studies. In future studies, other motor tasks should be applied.