• Horses with ≥30 minutes REM sleep daily outperform peers in field learning tasks. • Short REM periods reduce perseverance and performance during demanding training. • New field‑adapted test measures motivation and learning in familiar enclosures. • Study published in Scientific Reports confirms sleep’s role in equine cognition. • Findings suggest training schedules should include adequate REM periods for optimal learning. • Researchers emphasize sleep quality over quantity for equine performance.
Article Summaries:
- Just as for humans, sufficient sleep supports learning and coping for horses. A recent study at the University of Helsinki indicates that short periods of REM sleep impair horses’ perseverance and performance in demanding learning tasks. In a study published in the journal Scientific Reports, an entirely new learning test suited to field conditions was developed to measure the learning capacity and motivation of horses in their own enclosures and other familiar environments.
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