The study published in the journal Current Biology found that our brains may solidify the memories of new skills we just practised a few seconds earlier by taking a short rest. The results highlight the critically important role rest may play in learning. “Everyone thinks you need to ‘practice, practice, practice’ when learning something new. Instead, we found that resting, early and often, maybe just as critical to learning as practice,” said Leonardo G Cohen, a senior author of the study.
“Our ultimate hope is that the results of our experiments will help patients recover from the paralysing effects caused by strokes and other neurological injuries by informing the strategies they use to ‘relearn’ lost skills.” The study was led by Marlene Bonstrup. Like many scientists, she held the general belief that our brains needed long periods of rest, such as a good night’s sleep, to strengthen the memories formed while practising a newly learned skill. But after looking at brain waves recorded from healthy volunteers in learning and memory experiments, she started to question the idea.
The experiment began when they were shown a series of numbers on a screen and asked to type the numbers as many times as possible with their left hands for 10 seconds; take a 10-second break, and then repeat this trial cycle of alternating practice and rest 35 more times.
This strategy is typically used to reduce any complications that could arise from fatigue or other factors.
“I noticed that participants’ brain waves seemed to change much more during the rest periods than during the typing sessions,” said Dr Bonstrup. “This gave me the idea to look much more closely for when learning was actually happening.” They found that the volunteers’ performance improved primarily during the short rests, and not during typing.
The improvements made during the rest periods added up to the overall gains the volunteers made that day. Moreover, these gains were much greater than the ones seen after the volunteers returned the next day to try again, suggesting that the early breaks played as critical a role in learning as the practising itself.
“Our results suggest that it may be important to optimise the timing and configuration of rest intervals when implementing rehabilitative treatments in stroke patients or when learning to play the piano in normal volunteers,” said Dr Cohen. “Whether these results apply to other forms of learning and memory formation remains an open question.” Dr Cohen’s team plans to explore, in greater detail, the role of these early resting periods in learning and memory.
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