Different Patterns of Sleep-Dependent Procedural Memory Consolidation in Vipassana Meditation Practitioners and Non-meditating Controls

Elizaveta Solomonova; Simon Dubé; Cloé Blanchette-Carrière; Dasha A Sandra; Arnaud Samson-Richer; Michelle Carr; Tyna Paquette; Tore Nielsen

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.03014

Different Patterns of Sleep-Dependent Procedural Memory Consolidation in Vipassana Meditation Practitioners and Non-meditating Controls

Front Psychol. 2020 Jan 23:10:3014. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.03014. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Elizaveta Solomonova^{1

2

3}, Simon Dubé^{1

4}, Cloé Blanchette-Carrière¹, Dasha A Sandra⁵, Arnaud Samson-Richer¹, Michelle Carr^{1

6}, Tyna Paquette¹, Tore Nielsen^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Dream and Nightmare Laboratory, Centre for Advanced Research in Sleep Medicine, CIUSSS NÎM - HSCM, Montréal, QC, Canada.
² Department of Psychiatry, Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada.
³ Culture, Mind and Brain Research Group, Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montréal, QC, Canada.
⁴ Department of Psychology, Concordia University, Montréal, QC, Canada.
⁵ Integrated Program in Neuroscience, McGill University, Montréal, QC, Canada.
⁶ Sleep Laboratory, Swansea University, Swansea, United Kingdom.

Abstract

Aim: Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, and sleep spindles are all implicated in the consolidation of procedural memories. Relative contributions of sleep stages and sleep spindles were previously shown to depend on individual differences in task processing. However, no studies to our knowledge have focused on individual differences in experience with Vipassana meditation as related to sleep. Vipassana meditation is a form of mental training that enhances proprioceptive and somatic awareness and alters attentional style. The goal of this study was to examine a potential role for Vipassana meditation experience in sleep-dependent procedural memory consolidation.

Methods: Groups of Vipassana meditation practitioners (N = 22) and matched meditation-naïve controls (N = 20) slept for a daytime nap in the laboratory. Before and after the nap they completed a procedural task on the Wii Fit balance platform.

Results: Meditators performed slightly better on the task before the nap, but the two groups improved similarly after sleep. The groups showed different patterns of sleep-dependent procedural memory consolidation: in meditators, task learning was positively correlated with density of slow occipital spindles, while in controls task improvement was positively associated with time in REM sleep. Sleep efficiency and sleep architecture did not differ between groups. Meditation practitioners, however, had a lower density of occipital slow sleep spindles than controls.

Conclusion: Results suggest that neuroplastic changes associated with meditation practice may alter overall sleep microarchitecture and reorganize sleep-dependent patterns of memory consolidation. The lower density of occipital spindles in meditators may mean that meditation practice compensates for some of the memory functions of sleep.

Keywords: NREM sleep; REM sleep; body awareness; memory consolidation; procedural memory; sleep spindles; vipassana meditation.