RUI: NSF/SBE-BSF: The Role of Sleep in Infant Motor Learning

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Infants need frequent periods of rest or sleep for their physical and emotional well-being. Sleep also plays a very important role in learning and memory. Sleep helps babies to solidify newly learned information in their memories, a process known as consolidation. The goal of this project is to study the role of sleep in motor learning -- acquiring a new skill involving physical coordination of movement. The results will provide important insights into how the timing and quality of sleep infants experience influences their ability to consolidate new motor learning.The proposed work bridges three areas of research: cognitive development, motor development, and sleep. Infants who have just begun walking independently will learn to complete a tunnel navigation task. Following the task, infants will experience a delay during which some will nap and others will not. The impact of napping on learning will then be assessed. A sleep monitor (actigraph) will be employed to assess individual differences in quality of sleep and how sleep quality relates to learning. Measures of sleep prior to training and on the following night will permit investigation of the unique contributions of day and night sleep to infant learning. This study will be the first to directly examine sleep and motor learning in infancy, the first to study the contribution of night sleep on infant motor learning, and the first to examine whether individual differences in the quality of sleep mediates the effect of sleep on learning. The proposed research will ultimately provide guidelines for balancing between enriched learning experiences and a protective environment that promotes rest and regulation. This project is being supported by a partnership between the National Science Foundation and the U.S.-Israel Binational Science Foundation.