Sleep is more than rest for plasticity in the human cortex

Abstract Sleep promotes adaptation of behavior and underlying neural plasticity in comparison to active wakefulness. However, the contribution its two main characteristics, sleep-specific brain activity reduced stimulus interference, remains unclear. We tested healthy humans on a texture discrimination task, proxy for primary visual cortex, morning retested them afternoon after period daytime sleep, passive waking with maximally or waking. restored performance direct both waking, which deterioration across repeated within-day testing has been linked synaptic saturation cortex. No difference between was observed. Control experiments indicated that wakefulness retinotopically specific trained field not due unspecific differences. The restorative effect sleep correlated time spent NREM electroencephalographic slow wave energy, is thought reflect renormalization strength. results indicate more than state but restores by actively refining cortical plasticity.