Minimizing Interference with Early Consolidation Boosts 7-day Retention in Amnesic Patients

Objective: A short wakeful rest immediately after learning boosts memory retention in amnesic patients over several minutes. Here we investigated whether a short wakeful rest could boost memory retention in amnesic patients over a much longer period.

Method: The authors tested 15 patients with amnesia associated with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI)/mild Alzheimer's disease (AD) and 15 age- and-education-matched controls. All participants learned 2 prose passages, 1 followed by a 10-min wakeful rest (minimal sensory stimulation), and the other by a 10-min visual spot the difference game. Participants were given a surprise delayed recall test for both prose passages after 15-30 min and after 7 days.

Results: Wakeful resting boosted memory substantially in the patients over 15-30 min and 7 days: After 7 days all 15 patients retained >30% of the prose that had been learned prior to wakeful resting. In contrast, after 7 days, only 4 patients retained >30% of the prose that had been learned prior to playing the spot the difference game.

Conclusions: This striking 7-day memory boost via wakeful resting is remarkable, given that amnesic patients often struggle to remember new information over just a few minutes. Our novel findings indicate that there is substantial capacity for longer-term retention in patients with amnestic MCI/mild AD, and bolster the hypothesis that wakeful resting boosts memory by protecting the compromised memory consolidation system from interfering incoming information.