https://www.ninds.nih.gov/News-Events/News-and-Press-Releases/Press-Releases/Study-shows-how-taking-short-breaks-may-help-our-brains Skip to main content National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke [ ] En Espanol Disorders Search Disorders [ ] Search Alphabetically | View All * A * B * C * D * E * F * G * H * I * J * K * L * M * N * O * P * Q * R * S * T * U * V * W * X * Y * Z Clinical Trials * Clinical Trials in the Spotlight * Find NINDS Clinical Trials Public Education Patient & Caregiver Education * Fact Sheets * Hope Through Research * Know Your Brain * Preventing Stroke * Understanding Sleep * The Life and Death of a Neuron * Genes At Work In The Brain * Order Publications Support Resources * Patient Organizations * Professional Societies * Government Resources Featured High Blood Pressure: Mind Your Risks High Blood Pressure: Mind Your Risks Funding About Funding * Funding Types: Know the Differences * Global Health Research * Grant Mechanisms * Research Program Award (R35) * Javits Award (R37) * Landis Award for Outstanding Mentorship * NINDS Funding Strategy * Outcomes Data Find Funding Opportunities * Find Your Program Director Training & Career Development * High School, Undergraduate, & Post-Baccalaureate * Predoctoral Fellows * Postdoctoral Fellows * Clinician-Scientists * Faculty * Diversity Awards * Individual Fellowships * Career Development Awards * Institutional Grants * Other Training-Related Programs Apply for Funding * New Investigators * Grant Application Overview * Loan Repayment Programs * Administrative Supplements * Peer Review Process * Review Committees * Special Council Review * Application Support Library Clinical Research Next Steps * Pre-Funding: After Review * Terms of Award * Pre-Award Start-up Meeting * Now That You Are Funded Small Business Grants * Overview * Areas of Interest * Budget Information * Grant Timeline * Award Information * Entrepreneurial Resources Featured U.S. Capitol NINDS Funding Strategy Current Research Research Funded by NINDS * Clinical Research * Neuroscience Research * Translational Research Research at NINDS Coronavirus and NINDS * Coronavirus and the Nervous System * COVID-19 News & Events * Resources Focus on Disorders * Alzheimer's & Related Dementias * Epilepsy * Parkinson's Disease * Spinal Cord Injury * Traumatic Brain Injury Focus On Tools & Topics * Bioengineering * Biomarkers * Health Disparities Research * Neuroethics * Stem Cell Trans-Agency Activities * The BRAIN Initiative * CounterACT * Interagency Research Coordinating Committees * Neuroscience Blueprint * NINDS' Role in the HEAL Initiative * Office of Emergency Care Research * Rigor & Transparency Scientific Resources * Animal Models * Cell/Tissue/DNA * Clinical and Translational Resources * Gene Expression * Research Reagents Featured Image of brain for The BRAIN Initiative The BRAIN Initiative News & Events Events * Events News * Press Releases * Grantees in the News Director's Messages * Featured Director's Message * All Director's Messages Featured 7th Annual BRAIN Initiative Investigators Meeting small banner Neuroethics-Focused Session: 7th Annual BRAIN Initiative Investigators Meeting About NINDS Who We Are * Mission * NINDS Staff Directory * Program Directors * Advisory Council * Director's Corner * Nonprofit Forum * Board of Scientific Counselors * Donate to NINDS Budget & Legislation * NINDS Annual Budget * Testimony * Legislative Updates * FY20 Total Appropriation Impact * NINDS Contributions to Approved Therapies * Translational Research Success Stories * Workforce Diversity Success Stories Strategic Plans & Evaluations * Strategic Plans * Program Evaluations Guidance & Policy * NINDS Interpretation of the NIH GDS Policy Workforce Diversity * Enhancing Diversity * Success Stories * Diversity Resources Job Opportunities * Administrative, Executive, and Scientific Careers * The NIH BRAIN Initiative(r) Featured Dr. Walter Koroshetz Featured Director's Message National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke Menu menu Search search [ ] Submit Search [SEARCH] COVID-19 Get the latest funding, research, and public health information from NINDS Get the latest research information from NIH | Espanol Get the latest public health information from HHS Get the latest public health information from CDC You are here Home Study shows how taking short breaks may help our brains learn new skills Study shows how taking short breaks may help our brains learn new skills Tuesday, June 8, 2021 NIH scientists discover that the resting brain repeatedly replays compressed memories of what was just practiced In a study of healthy volunteers, National Institutes of Health researchers have mapped out the brain activity that flows when we learn a new skill, such as playing a new song on the piano, and discovered why taking short breaks from practice is a key to learning. The researchers found that during rest the volunteers' brains rapidly and repeatedly replayed faster versions of the activity seen while they practiced typing a code. The more a volunteer replayed the activity the better they performed during subsequent practice sessions, suggesting rest strengthened memories. "Our results support the idea that wakeful rest plays just as important a role as practice in learning a new skill. It appears to be the period when our brains compress and consolidate memories of what we just practiced," said Leonardo G. Cohen, M.D., senior investigator at the NIH's National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and the senior author of the study published in Cell Reports. "Understanding this role of neural replay may not only help shape how we learn new skills but also how we help patients recover skills lost after neurological injury like stroke." The study was conducted at the NIH Clinical Center. Dr. Cohen's team used a highly sensitive scanning technique, called magnetoencephalography, to record the brain waves of 33 healthy, right-handed volunteers as they learned to type a five-digit test code with their left hands. The subjects sat in a chair and under the scanner's long, cone-shaped cap. An experiment began when a subject was shown the code "41234" on a screen and asked to type it out as many times as possible for 10 seconds and then take a 10 second break. Subjects were asked to repeat this cycle of alternating practice and rest sessions a total of 35 times. During the first few trials, the speed at which subjects correctly typed the code improved dramatically and then leveled off around the 11th cycle. In a previous study, led by former NIH postdoctoral fellow Marlene Bonstrup, M.D., Dr. Cohen's team showed that most of these gains happened during short rests, and not when the subjects were typing. Moreover, the gains were greater than those made after a night's sleep and were correlated with a decrease in the size of brain waves, called beta rhythms. In this new report, the researchers searched for something different in the subjects' brain waves. "We wanted to explore the mechanisms behind memory strengthening seen during wakeful rest. Several forms of memory appear to rely on the replaying of neural activity, so we decided to test this idea out for procedural skill learning," said Ethan R. Buch, Ph.D., a staff scientist on Dr. Cohen's team and leader of the study. To do this, Leonardo Claudino, Ph.D., a former postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Cohen's lab, helped Dr. Buch develop a computer program which allowed the team to decipher the brain wave activity associated with typing each number in the test code. 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. "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." 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. "We were a bit surprised by these last results. Traditionally, it was thought that the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex may not play such a substantive role in procedural memory. In contrast, our results suggest that these regions are rapidly chattering with the sensorimotor cortex when learning these types of skills," said Dr. Cohen. "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." Article: Buch et al., Consolidation of human skill linked to waking hippocampo-neocortical replay, Cell Reports, June 8, 2021, DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2021.109193 This study was supported by the NIH Intramural Research Program at the NINDS. For more information: Stroke Information Page What You Need to Know About Stroke National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) Intramural Research Program (IRP) NIH Clinical Center Neuroscience @ NIH NINDS Division of Intramural Research ### NINDS is the nation's leading funder of research on the brain and nervous system. The mission of NINDS is to seek fundamental knowledge about the brain and nervous system and to use that knowledge to reduce the burden of neurological disease. About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit https://www.nih.gov. Grey side view of a brain. Yellow and brown patches indicate sites of memory replay. 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. Above is a map of the memory replay activity observed in the study. Courtesy of Cohen lab, NIH/NINDS. 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