Abstract
Background: Timing dysfunctions occur in a number of neurological and psychiatric disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, obsessive-compulsive disorder, autism and attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder. Several lines of evidence show that disrupted timing processing is involved in specific fronto-striatal abnormalities. The striatum encodes reinforcement learning and procedural motion, and consequently is required to represent temporal information precisely, which then guides actions in proper sequence. Previous studies highlighted the temporal scaling property of timing-relevant striatal neurons; however, it is still unknown how this is accomplished over short temporal latencies, such as the sub-seconds to seconds range.Methods: We designed a task with a series of timing behaviors that required rats to reproduce a fixed duration with robust action. Using chronic multichannel electrode arrays, we recorded neural activity from dorso-medial striatum in 4 rats performing the task and identified modulation response of each neuron to different events. Cell type classification was performed according to a multi-criteria clustering analysis.Results: Dorso-medial striatal neurons (n = 557) were recorded, of which 113 single units were considered as timing-relevant neurons, especially the fast-spiking subpopulation that had trial–to–trial ramping up or ramping down firing modulation during the time estimation period. Furthermore, these timing-relevant striatal neurons had to calibrate the spread of their firing pattern by rewarded experience to express the timing behavior accurately.Conclusion: Our data suggests that the dynamic activities of timing-relevant units encode information about the current duration and recent outcomes, which is needed to predict and drive the following action. These results reveal the potential mechanism of time calibration in a short temporal resolution, which may help to explain the neural basis of motor coordination affected by certain physiological or pathological conditions.
Highlights
Given the dynamic nature of the world, estimating duration and predicting its consequences is a fundamental skill for the daily activity of organisms
The time from “sound onset” (SO) to WPO was defined as the action time (AT), and the time from WPI to WPO was defined as holding time (HT) (Figure 1A)
To focus on robust time-guiding action over a sub-second–to– second timescale, we employed an interval reproduction task to measure time performance, which required the subjects to make a timed action that was equivalent in duration to the target one (Allman and Meck, 2012; Xu et al, 2014)
Summary
Given the dynamic nature of the world, estimating duration and predicting its consequences is a fundamental skill for the daily activity of organisms This timing ability is of critical importance to inter-temporal decision-making, sensory integration and motor coordination (Buonomano and Laje, 2011). The striatum is the main input layer of the basal ganglia, which receives glutamatergic inputs from multiple cortices and dopaminergic inputs from substantia nigra compacta (SNc) These connections place striatal neurons in a unique position to integrate divergent contextual and kinematic information (Reig and Silberberg, 2014; Rueda-orozco and Robbe, 2015). The striatum encodes reinforcement learning and procedural motion, and is required to represent temporal information precisely, which guides actions in proper sequence. Previous studies highlighted the temporal scaling property of timing-relevant striatal neurons; it is still unknown how this is accomplished over short temporal latencies, such as the sub-seconds to seconds range
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
