Abstract
Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) Syndrome is a relatively frequent sleep disorder characterized by disrupted sleep patterns. It is a well-established fact that sleep has beneficial effect on memory consolidation by enhancing neural plasticity. Implicit sequence learning is a prominent component of skill learning. However, the formation and consolidation of this fundamental learning mechanism remains poorly understood in OSA. In the present study we examined the consolidation of different aspects of implicit sequence learning in patients with OSA. We used the Alternating Serial Reaction Time task to measure general skill learning and sequence-specific learning. There were two sessions: a learning phase and a testing phase, separated by a 10-hour offline period with sleep. Our data showed differences in offline changes of general skill learning between the OSA and control group. The control group demonstrated offline improvement from evening to morning, while the OSA group did not. In contrast, we did not observe differences between the groups in offline changes in sequence-specific learning. Our findings suggest that disrupted sleep in OSA differently affects neural circuits involved in the consolidation of sequence learning.
Highlights
There is a growing interest within cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology to understand the underlying mechanisms of memory consolidation; namely, how newly acquired and initially labile memory representations become stabile and resistant to interference and forgetting [1]
Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) and control groups showed no differences in sequence-specific learning (TRIPLET6GROUP interaction: F(1,32) = 1.61, gp2 = 0.04, p = 0.21)
OSA and control groups performed at the same level (EPOCH6GROUP interaction: F(4,128) = 2.21, gp2 = 0.06, p = 0.12)
Summary
There is a growing interest within cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology to understand the underlying mechanisms of memory consolidation; namely, how newly acquired and initially labile memory representations become stabile and resistant to interference and forgetting [1]. Sleep-related enhancement in declarative memory is clearly demonstrated [7,8,9], but the beneficial effect of sleep on the consolidation of non-declarative (i.e. procedural) knowledge is still controversial. We used the Alternating Serial Reaction Time (ASRT) task [17] to extend previous research by separating and measuring both general skill learning and sequence-specific learning. In this task some runs of three consecutive stimuli (triplets) are more frequent than others. A general speed-up irrespectively of the triplet frequencies is considered to be a result of the general skill aspect of learning in this task [12,14]
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