Abstract
Timing in the range of seconds referred to as interval timing is crucial for cognitive operations and conscious time processing. According to recent models of interval timing basal ganglia (BG) oscillatory loops are involved in time interval recognition. Parkinsońs disease (PD) is a typical disease of the basal ganglia that shows distortions in interval timing. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) is a powerful treatment of PD which modulates motor and cognitive functions depending on stimulation frequency by affecting subcortical-cortical oscillatory loops. Thus, for the understanding of BG-involvement in interval timing it is of interest whether STN-DBS can modulate timing in a frequency dependent manner by interference with oscillatory time recognition processes. We examined production and reproduction of 5 and 15 second intervals and millisecond timing in a double blind, randomised, within-subject repeated-measures design of 12 PD-patients applying no, 10-Hz- and ≥130-Hz-STN-DBS compared to healthy controls. We found under(re-)production of the 15-second interval and a significant enhancement of this under(re-)production by 10-Hz-stimulation compared to no stimulation, ≥130-Hz-STN-DBS and controls. Milliseconds timing was not affected. We provide first evidence for a frequency-specific modulatory effect of STN-DBS on interval timing. Our results corroborate the involvement of BG in general and of the STN in particular in the cognitive representation of time intervals in the range of multiple seconds.
Highlights
Time is a fundamental dimension of human existence
Timing in the range of seconds (s) referred to as interval timing is essential for cognitive operations such as decision processes and conscious time processing and depends on a neural system involving frontoparietal cortices and basal ganglia (BG) [5,6]
The main findings were as follows: 1) For interval timing patients and controls over(re-)produced the short intervals of 5 s and under(re)produced the long intervals of 15 s in both the time production and the reproduction tasks
Summary
Time is a fundamental dimension of human existence. In a classical concept three crucial time scales have been proposed for different aspects of life. Circadian timing in the range of 24 hours controls the sleep-wake rhythm [1] which depends on hypothalamic structures [2]. Milliseconds (ms) timing is crucially involved in motor control especially of precise discontinuous repetitive automatic movements [3] and relies on the cerebellum [4]. Timing in the range of (multiple) seconds (s) referred to as interval timing is essential for cognitive operations such as decision processes and conscious time processing and depends on a neural system involving frontoparietal cortices and basal ganglia (BG) [5,6]
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