Time Adaptation Shows Duration Selectivity in the Human Parietal Cortex
| Autor: | Thomas Ditye, Masamichi J. Hayashi, Synnöve Carlson, Norihiro Sadato, Ryota Kanai, Vincent Walsh, Tokiko Harada, Maho Hashiguchi |
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| Přispěvatelé: | Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto-yliopisto, Aalto University, Medicum, Department of Physiology, Synnöve Carlson / Principal Investigator |
| Rok vydání: | 2015 |
| Předmět: |
Adult
Male TRANSCRANIAL MAGNETIC STIMULATION Adolescent QH301-705.5 INTERVAL DISCRIMINATION RIGHT TEMPOROPARIETAL JUNCTION Posterior parietal cortex Biology General Biochemistry Genetics and Molecular Biology TUNING CURVES Young Adult BASAL GANGLIA Discrimination Psychological Supramarginal gyrus Parietal Lobe Neuronal tuning medicine Humans Biology (General) PERCEPTION General Immunology and Microbiology medicine.diagnostic_test General Neuroscience Neural adaptation Parietal lobe Correction Inferior parietal lobule NEURAL REPRESENTATION Time perception HUMAN BRAIN Adaptation Physiological Magnetic Resonance Imaging Healthy Volunteers Temporal Lobe medicine.anatomical_structure FMRI Time Perception HUMAN VISUAL-CORTEX Female 3111 Biomedicine General Agricultural and Biological Sciences Functional magnetic resonance imaging Neuroscience Research Article |
| Zdroj: | PLoS Biology PLoS Biology, Vol 13, Iss 9, p e1002262 (2015) |
| ISSN: | 1545-7885 |
| Popis: | Although psychological and computational models of time estimation have postulated the existence of neural representations tuned for specific durations, empirical evidence of this notion has been lacking. Here, using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) adaptation paradigm, we show that the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) (corresponding to the supramarginal gyrus) exhibited reduction in neural activity due to adaptation when a visual stimulus of the same duration was repeatedly presented. Adaptation was strongest when stimuli of identical durations were repeated, and it gradually decreased as the difference between the reference and test durations increased. This tuning property generalized across a broad range of durations, indicating the presence of general time-representation mechanisms in the IPL. Furthermore, adaptation was observed irrespective of the subject’s attention to time. Repetition of a nontemporal aspect of the stimulus (i.e., shape) did not produce neural adaptation in the IPL. These results provide neural evidence for duration-tuned representations in the human brain. A series of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) adaptation experiments provide empirical evidence for the existence of neural populations in the human inferior parietal lobule that are tuned to specific durations of time. Author Summary The human brain has the ability to estimate the passage of time, which allows us to perform complex cognitive tasks such as playing music, dancing, and understanding speech. Scientists have just begun to understand which brain areas become active when we estimate time. However, it still remains a mystery how exactly the information about time is represented in the brain. In this study, we hypothesized that time might be represented by neurons that are specifically tuned to a specific duration, as has been known for simple visual features such as the orientation and the motion direction in the visual cortex. To test this idea, we performed multiple functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) adaptation experiments in which we sought evidence of neuronal adaptation, that is, a reduction in the responsiveness of neurons to repeated presentations of similar durations. Our experiments revealed that the level of brain activity in the right inferior parietal lobule (IPL) was strongly reduced when a stimulus of the same duration was repeatedly presented. This finding was reproduced for a range of subsecond durations. Our results indicate that neurons in the human IPL are tuned to specific preferred durations. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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