Abstract
During sequence learning, individuals show motor-skill acquisition and an ability to verbally describe items within the sequence. We disrupted this latter, declarative component by having participants learn a word list immediately after sequence learning. This induced off-line skill improvements. We conclude that off-line memory processing relies not only on the engagement of neuroplastic mechanisms but also on the disengagement of an interaction between declarative and procedural memory systems.
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Acknowledgements
The US National Institutes of Health (R01 NS051446, EMR) supported this study. We thank M.P. Walker and R.C. Miall for their thoughtful and constructive comments and A. Pascual-Leone for his continued guidance.
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R.M.B. conducted the experiments and assisted with the analysis; E.M.R. designed the study, assisted with conducting the experiments, analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript.
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Brown, R., Robertson, E. Inducing motor skill improvements with a declarative task. Nat Neurosci 10, 148–149 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1836
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1836
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