Rest, replay, and skill learning

In a study of healthy volunteers, NIH researchers discovered that our brains may replay compressed memories of learning new skills when we rest.

＊NIH : National Institutes of Health (米)国立衛生研究所

“During the early part of the learning curve we saw that wakeful rest replay was compressed in time, frequent, and a good predictor of variability in learning a new skill across individuals,” said Dr. Buch. “This suggests that during wakeful rest the brain binds together the memories required to learn a new skill.”

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The program helped them discover that a much faster version – about 20 times faster – of the brain activity seen during typing was replayed during the rest periods. Over the course of the first eleven practice trials, these compressed versions of the activity were replayed many times – about 25 times – per rest period. This was two to three times more often than the activity seen during later rest periods or after the experiments had ended.

Interestingly, they found that the frequency of replay during rest predicted memory strengthening. In other words, the subjects whose brains replayed the typing activity more often showed greater jumps in performance after each trial than those who replayed it less often.

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As expected, the team discovered that the replay activity often happened in the sensorimotor regions of the brain, which are responsible for controlling movements. However, they also saw activity in other brain regions, namely the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex.

＊sensorimotor regions 感覚運動領域
＊hippocampus 海馬
＊entorhinal cortex 嗅内皮質


 “Overall, our results support the idea that manipulating replay activity during waking rest may be a powerful tool that researchers can use to help individuals learn new skills faster and possibly facilitate rehabilitation from stroke.”

https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/pdf/S2211-1247(21)00539-8.pdf

https://www.ninds.nih.gov/News-Events/News-and-Press-Releases/Press-Releases/Study-shows-how-taking-short-breaks-may-help-our-brains
Tuesday, June 8, 2021

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