Contrary to its well-established role in declarative learning, the impact of sleep on motor memory consolidation remains a subject of debate. Current literature suggests that while motor skill learning benefits from sleep, consolidation of sensorimotor adaptation (SMA) depends solely on the passage of time. This has led to the proposal that SMA may be an exception to other types of memories. Here, we addressed this ongoing controversy in humans through three comprehensive experiments using the visuomotor adaptation paradigm (N = 290, 150 females). In Experiment 1, we investigated the impact of sleep on memory retention when the temporal gap between training and sleep was not controlled. In line with the previous literature, we found that memory consolidates with the passage of time. In Experiment 2, we used an anterograde interference protocol to determine the time window during which SMA memory is most fragile and, thus, potentially most sensitive to sleep intervention. Our results show that memory is most vulnerable during the initial hour post-training. Building on this insight, in Experiment 3, we investigated the impact of sleep when it coincided with the critical first hour of memory consolidation. This manipulation unveiled a benefit of sleep (30% memory enhancement) alongside an increase in spindle density and spindle–SO coupling during NREM sleep, two well-established neural markers of sleep consolidation. Our findings reconcile seemingly conflicting perspectives on the active role of sleep in motor learning and point to common mechanisms at the basis of memory formation.

与睡眠在陈述性学习中的既定作用相反，睡眠对运动记忆巩固的影响仍然是一个争论的话题。目前的文献表明，虽然运动技能学习受益于睡眠，但感觉运动适应（SMA）的巩固仅取决于时间的流逝。这导致有人提出 SMA 可能是其他类型存储器的例外。在这里，我们通过三个使用视觉运动适应范式的综合实验（ N = 290，150 名女性）来解决人类中持续存在的争议。在实验1中，我们研究了当训练和睡眠之间的时间间隔不受控制时，睡眠对记忆保留的影响。与之前的文献一致，我们发现记忆会随着时间的流逝而巩固。在实验 2 中，我们使用顺行干扰方案来确定 SMA 记忆最脆弱的时间窗口，因此可能对睡眠干预最敏感。我们的结果表明，记忆在训练后的最初一个小时内最脆弱。基于这一见解，在实验 3 中，我们研究了睡眠对记忆巩固的关键第一个小时的影响。这种操作揭示了睡眠的好处（记忆力增强 30%），同时 NREM 睡眠期间纺锤体密度和纺锤体-SO 耦合增加，这是睡眠巩固的两个公认的神经标志物。我们的研究结果调和了关于睡眠在运动学习中的积极作用的看似相互矛盾的观点，并指出了记忆形成基础上的共同机制。