Effect of Sleep and Consciousness on Consolidation of Implicit motor memory among Youth, Middle-aged and Elderly

Introduction: The purpose of this research was to compare the effect of sleep and consciousness on consolidation based on implicit motor memory enhancement among youth, middle-aged and elderly. Materials and Methods: The sample statistic consisted of 120 (youth, middle-aged and elderly) healthy and right-handed volunteers (40 people from each age group). The groups were availability selected and randomly divided into six experimental groups of implicit motor memory of youth, middle-aged, and elderly with a distance of twelve hours in the morning (without night sleep) and evening (with night sleep). This research included the acquisition and retention phases. In this research, the alternative serial reaction time task with random and repetitive sequences was used. Results: In the acquisition phase, the results of ANOVA with repeated measure test showed that the practice led to enhance mean of performance in random and repetitive reaction time in 5-epoch. In the retention phase, the main effect of the practice epoch was significant (P<0.05) and all six groups were better than the 5-epoch in the acquisition phase. Also, the results of the Duncan posthoc test showed that the youth, middle-aged and elderly groups with 12h retention test delay, were better performance than the practice session. Conclusion: Generally, night sleep with 12h retention test facilities the process of consolidation based on implicit motor memory enhancement among youth, middle-aged and elderly people.