Trial reportScientific reports2016
Deep Breathing Practice Facilitates Retention of Newly Learned Motor Skills.
Trial report in Scientific reports, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed.
- Box breathing or six breaths per minute: Which strategy improves athletes post-HIIT cardiovascular recovery?PloS one · 2025Trial
- Effects of alternate nostril breathing exercise on cardiorespiratory functions in healthy young adults.Annals of African medicineTrial
- Noninvasive Stimulation of Contralateral Primary Motor Cortex Reduces the Amount of Skill Generalization to the Untrained Arm: Primary Motor Cortex and Intermanual Skill Generalization.The European journal of neuroscience · 2026Article
- Learners' perceptions of the medical pause: cognitive load and team performance.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Guided mindfulness meditation as a priming strategy for reducing anxiety and facilitating motor skill learning.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- A systematic review protocol for slow-paced breathing in healthy populations: Impacts on cognition and insights into mechanisms of action.Systematic reviews · 2025Article
- Role of working memory in interlimb generalization of newly learned skills.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Breathing on the mind: Treating dyspnea and anxiety symptoms with biofeedback in chronic lung disease - A qualitative analysis.Respiratory medicine · 2024Article
- The Effectiveness of a Multimodal Brain Empowerment Program in Mild Cognitive Impairment: A Single-Blind, Quasi-Randomized Experimental Study.Journal of clinical medicine · 2023Article
- The Effect of Deep and Slow Breathing on Retention and Cognitive Function in the Elderly Population.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Reflecting on what is "skill" in human motor skill learning.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2023Review
- Breathing Exercises for Improving Cognitive Function in Patients with Stroke.Journal of clinical medicine · 2022Review
- Reducing Test Anxiety by Device-Guided Breathing: A Pilot Study.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Effect of alternate nostril breathing on evoked potentials among internet addicts.Bioinformation · 2022Article
- The medical pause: Importance, processes and training.Medical education · 2021Article
- Detecting Mind Wandering: An Objective Method via Simultaneous Control of Respiration and Fingertip Pressure.Frontiers in psychology · 2019Article
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- Impact of Age on Cognitive Testing Practice Effects and Cardiorespiratory Responses.Gerontology & geriatric medicineArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Paced deep breathing practices, a core component of a number of meditation programs, have been shown to enhance a variety of cognitive functions. However, their effects on complex processes such as memory, and in particular, formation and retention of motor memories, remain unknown. Here we show that a 30-minute session of deep, alternate-nostril breathing remarkably enhances retention of a newly learned motor skill. Healthy humans learned to accurately trace a given path within a fixed time duration. Following learning, one group of subjects (n = 16) underwent the 30-minute breathing practice while another control group (n = 14) rested for the same duration. The breathing-practice group retained the motor skill strikingly better than controls, both immediately after the breathing session and also at 24 hours. These effects were confirmed in another group (n = 10) that rested for 30 minutes post-learning, but practiced breathing after their first retention test; these subjects showed significantly better retention at 24 hours but not 30 minutes. Our results thus uncover for the first time the remarkable facilitatory effects of simple breathing practices on complex functions such as motor memory, and have important implications for sports training and neuromotor rehabilitation in which better retention of learned motor skills is highly desirable.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.