Hippocampal ripples predict motor learning during brief rest breaks in humans
Abstract Critical aspects of motor learning and memory happen offline, during both wake and sleep. When healthy young people learn a motor sequence task, most of their performance improvement happens not while typing, but offline, during interleaved rest breaks. In contrast, the performance of patie...
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| Format: | Article |
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Nature Portfolio
2025-07-01
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| Series: | Nature Communications |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-61136-y |
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| _version_ | 1849402151092092928 |
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| author | Martin Sjøgård Bryan Baxter Dimitrios Mylonas Megan Thompson Kristi Kwok Bailey Driscoll Anabella Tolosa Wen Shi Robert Stickgold Mark Vangel Catherine J. Chu Dara S. Manoach |
| author_facet | Martin Sjøgård Bryan Baxter Dimitrios Mylonas Megan Thompson Kristi Kwok Bailey Driscoll Anabella Tolosa Wen Shi Robert Stickgold Mark Vangel Catherine J. Chu Dara S. Manoach |
| author_sort | Martin Sjøgård |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract Critical aspects of motor learning and memory happen offline, during both wake and sleep. When healthy young people learn a motor sequence task, most of their performance improvement happens not while typing, but offline, during interleaved rest breaks. In contrast, the performance of patients with dense amnesia due to hippocampal damage actually gets worse over the rest breaks and improves while typing. These findings indicate that an intact hippocampus is necessary for offline motor learning during wake, but do not specify its mechanism. Here, we studied epilepsy patients (n = 17) undergoing direct intracranial electroencephalographic monitoring of the hippocampus as they learned the same motor sequence task. Like healthy young people, they show greater speed gains across rest breaks than while typing. They also show higher hippocampal ripple rates during these rest breaks that predict offline gains in speed. This suggests that motor learning during brief rest breaks during wake is mediated by hippocampal ripples. These results expand our understanding of the role of hippocampal ripples beyond declarative memory to include enhancing motor procedural memory. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-6c77e8b81e2c40ea9d29260c665b9669 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2041-1723 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-07-01 |
| publisher | Nature Portfolio |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Nature Communications |
| spelling | doaj-art-6c77e8b81e2c40ea9d29260c665b96692025-08-20T03:37:37ZengNature PortfolioNature Communications2041-17232025-07-011611910.1038/s41467-025-61136-yHippocampal ripples predict motor learning during brief rest breaks in humansMartin Sjøgård0Bryan Baxter1Dimitrios Mylonas2Megan Thompson3Kristi Kwok4Bailey Driscoll5Anabella Tolosa6Wen Shi7Robert Stickgold8Mark Vangel9Catherine J. Chu10Dara S. Manoach11Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical SchoolDepartment of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical SchoolDepartment of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical SchoolDepartment of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical SchoolDepartment of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical SchoolDepartment of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical SchoolDepartment of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical SchoolDepartment of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical SchoolDepartment of Psychiatry, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical SchoolAthinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical SchoolDepartment of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical SchoolDepartment of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical SchoolAbstract Critical aspects of motor learning and memory happen offline, during both wake and sleep. When healthy young people learn a motor sequence task, most of their performance improvement happens not while typing, but offline, during interleaved rest breaks. In contrast, the performance of patients with dense amnesia due to hippocampal damage actually gets worse over the rest breaks and improves while typing. These findings indicate that an intact hippocampus is necessary for offline motor learning during wake, but do not specify its mechanism. Here, we studied epilepsy patients (n = 17) undergoing direct intracranial electroencephalographic monitoring of the hippocampus as they learned the same motor sequence task. Like healthy young people, they show greater speed gains across rest breaks than while typing. They also show higher hippocampal ripple rates during these rest breaks that predict offline gains in speed. This suggests that motor learning during brief rest breaks during wake is mediated by hippocampal ripples. These results expand our understanding of the role of hippocampal ripples beyond declarative memory to include enhancing motor procedural memory.https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-61136-y |
| spellingShingle | Martin Sjøgård Bryan Baxter Dimitrios Mylonas Megan Thompson Kristi Kwok Bailey Driscoll Anabella Tolosa Wen Shi Robert Stickgold Mark Vangel Catherine J. Chu Dara S. Manoach Hippocampal ripples predict motor learning during brief rest breaks in humans Nature Communications |
| title | Hippocampal ripples predict motor learning during brief rest breaks in humans |
| title_full | Hippocampal ripples predict motor learning during brief rest breaks in humans |
| title_fullStr | Hippocampal ripples predict motor learning during brief rest breaks in humans |
| title_full_unstemmed | Hippocampal ripples predict motor learning during brief rest breaks in humans |
| title_short | Hippocampal ripples predict motor learning during brief rest breaks in humans |
| title_sort | hippocampal ripples predict motor learning during brief rest breaks in humans |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-61136-y |
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