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

为了身体和情绪的健康，婴儿需要频繁的休息或睡眠。睡眠在学习和记忆中也起着非常重要的作用。睡眠帮助婴儿将新学到的信息巩固在他们的记忆中，这个过程被称为巩固。这个项目的目标是研究睡眠在运动学习中的作用--获得一种涉及身体运动协调的新技能。这一结果将为婴儿的睡眠时间和质量如何影响他们巩固新的运动学习能力提供重要的见解。拟议的工作架起了三个研究领域的桥梁：认知发展、运动发展和睡眠。刚刚开始独立行走的婴儿将学习完成一项隧道导航任务。在这项任务之后，婴儿将经历一段时间的延迟，在此期间，一些人会打盹，另一些人则不会。然后将评估午睡对学习的影响。将使用睡眠监测器(活动记录仪)来评估睡眠质量的个体差异以及睡眠质量与学习的关系。对训练前和第二天晚上的睡眠进行测量，可以调查白天和夜间睡眠对婴儿学习的独特贡献。这项研究将首次直接研究婴儿时期的睡眠和运动学习，首次研究夜间睡眠对婴儿运动学习的贡献，以及首次研究睡眠质量的个体差异是否会调节睡眠对学习的影响。这项拟议的研究最终将提供在丰富的学习经验和促进休息和调节的保护性环境之间取得平衡的指导方针。该项目由美国国家科学基金会和美国-以色列双国科学基金会合作支持。

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.