When you’re learning a new skill, like playing the piano or mastering a golf swing, you may have heard that “practice makes perfect.” But according to a new study published in the Journal of NeuroscienceThe timing of your sleep may be just as important as the practice itself. Researchers have found that motor memories (the way our brains remember skills and actions) not only get stronger over time, but they can be significantly improved when sleep closely follows practice.
The research team set out to explore a long-standing debate in neuroscience: Does sleep play a role in consolidating motor memories, or is this process purely a function of time? While sleep has long been known to improve declarative memory (the kind that helps us remember facts and events), its role in motor memory, such as learning new physical skills, is less clear.
Previous studies have suggested that motor memories, particularly those involved in adaptation to new sensorimotor conditions, consolidate over time, independent of sleep. However, these studies did not account for the delay between training and sleep, which could be a critical factor.
In this study, the researchers hypothesized that motor memories might indeed benefit from sleep, but only when sleep occurs shortly after training, when the memory is still fresh and fragile. This hypothesis, if confirmed, would indicate that there are common mechanisms in how different types of memories are consolidated, whether it’s learning facts or mastering new skills.
“Although it is well established that sleep improves conscious memory of facts and events, its role in consolidating memories of motor skills such as riding a bicycle remains a matter of debate,” said study author Valeria Della-Maggiore, director of the Action Physiology Laboratory at the University of Buenos Aires, professor at the University of San Martin and assistant professor at McGill University.
“However, most studies questioning the role of sleep in motor learning have largely overlooked the importance of the time interval between training and sleep as a relevant factor. In our study, we aimed to investigate the proximity between training and bedtime as a key modulator, considering the potential impact of sleep in optimizing training and rehabilitation protocols.”
To test their hypothesis, the researchers conducted a series of experiments with 290 participants, all right-handed, with no history of neurological or psychiatric disorders. The participants, aged 20 to 28, were recruited from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Buenos Aires. Before and during the study, they maintained regular sleep schedules, which were monitored using self-reported diaries.
The study used a visuomotor adaptation task, a well-established method for examining sensorimotor adaptation. Participants had to move a cursor on a computer screen to reach targets using a joystick. The trick was that sometimes the cursor’s movement was altered by optical rotation, requiring participants to adapt their hand movements to reach the target accurately. This task allowed the researchers to measure how well participants retained their ability to adapt to these changes, a measure of motor memory.
In the first experiment, 111 participants were divided into five groups, each tested at different intervals after training, ranging from 15 minutes to nine hours. These intervals did not control when the participants went to sleep, mimicking everyday situations where people train at different times of the day. Another group of participants trained and then slept before being tested 24 hours later.
In the second experiment, the researchers sought to determine the period most vulnerable to memory consolidation by introducing interference—another learning task—to see how quickly motor memory from the first task would deteriorate. A sample of 92 participants adapted to two opposing optical rotations separated by different intervals, from five minutes to 24 hours, with memory retention tested the next day.
In the final experiment, the researchers directly tested the hypothesis that sleep is beneficial for sensorimotor adaptation memory only when it occurs shortly after learning, within the identified critical window. A sample of 74 participants was divided into two main groups: one group trained on the task late in the evening and fell asleep shortly afterward, while the other group trained in the morning and did not fall asleep until much later. Both groups were tested 24 hours after their initial training.
To control for potential circadian effects, the researchers also included two additional control groups: one trained in the evening and tested in the morning after a full night’s sleep, and the other trained in the morning and tested in the evening with no intervening sleep period.
In the first experiment, where the time between training and sleep was not controlled, no significant differences were observed in memory retention between participants who slept and those who did not sleep. This result is consistent with previous studies suggesting that motor memory consolidation does not depend on sleep when training is spread out over the day.
However, the second experiment revealed that motor memories were most fragile—and thus most in need of consolidation—in the first hour after training. During this period, introducing a second task significantly impaired retention of the first task. This finding highlighted a critical window during which the brain is most susceptible to interference.
The third experiment provided the most compelling evidence. When participants practiced just before going to sleep, their memory retention was significantly better—by about 30 percent—than when they practiced and stayed awake for several hours before going to sleep. This improvement was linked to specific changes in brain activity during sleep, including increased density of sleep spindles (brief bursts of brain activity during non-REM sleep) and their coupling with slow oscillations. These changes were particularly pronounced in the brain hemisphere opposite the hand used in the task, suggesting that sleep actively consolidates motor memory by fine-tuning neural connections.
“We were surprised by the consistent improvement in memory of about 30% observed in the independently trained groups,” Della-Maggiore told PsyPost. “We were pleased to replicate previous findings from our lab showing that sleep specifically modulates neural markers of memory consolidation in the brain hemisphere contralateral (opposite) to the trained hand.”
The implications of this study are far-reaching. If sleep timing can significantly improve motor memory, it could change the way we approach training and rehabilitation. Athletes could benefit from napping shortly after training, and rehabilitation programs could be optimized by aligning therapy sessions with patients’ sleep schedules.
“Scheduling skill practice around your sleep schedule can dramatically improve your ability to retain and perform it,” Della-Maggiore said. “This simple adjustment could effectively boost motor learning and recovery in sports and rehabilitation settings.”
While these results are promising, the study has limitations that future research should address. First, the motor learning tasks were highly controlled and may not fully represent more complex real-life activities. It remains to be seen whether the same sleep-related benefits would apply to skills such as playing a musical instrument or playing sports. Additionally, while the study controlled for sleep quality, it did not examine whether shorter naps might have a similar effect to a full night of sleep.
“We are currently designing a study to determine whether our work applies to real-life activities, which will be crucial to assess its translational impact,” Della-Maggiore said. “Our long-term goal is to determine whether the beneficial effects of sleep extend to real-world motor tasks, such as sports and complex tool use, and to explore its effectiveness in patients with motor injuries. We also want to assess whether a short nap can be as beneficial as a full night’s sleep. In parallel, we are developing sleep monitoring and wearable devices to enable personalized, data-driven neurological interventions at home, beyond the clinical setting.”
The study titled “Sleep consolidation potentiates sensorimotor adaptation” was authored by Agustin Solano, Gonzalo Lerner, Guillermina Griffa, Alvaro Deleglise, Pedro Caffaro, Luis Riquelme, Daniel Perez-Chada and Valeria Della-Maggiore.
