Sleep-independent offline consolidation of response inhibition during the daytime post-training period

Appropriate inhibitory response control is associated with goal-directed behavior. Sleep accelerates the offline consolidation of acquired motor skills that are explicitly predictable; however, the effect of sleep on implicit (unpredictable) motor skills remains controversial. We speculated that a key component of response inhibition skill differentiates between these skill consolidation properties because explicit prediction can minimize the inhibitory efforts in a motor skill. We explored the offline skill learning properties of response inhibition during sleep and wakefulness using auditory Go and Go/Nogo tasks. We attempted to discriminate the possible effects of time elapsed after training (12 or 24 h), post-training sleep/wake state (sleep or wakefulness) and time of day (nighttime or daytime) in 79 healthy human subjects divided into 6 groups that underwent various sleep regimens prior to training and retesting. We found that delayed response inhibition skill improvement was achieved via a simple passage of daytime, regardless of the participants’ alertness level. Our results suggest that sleep-independent neuroplasticity occurs during the daytime and facilitates a delayed learning of response inhibition skill.