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Interval time coding by neurons in the presupplementary and supplementary motor areas

Nature Neuroscience volume 12, pages 502–507 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

Interval timing is an essential guiding force of behavior. Previous reports have implicated the prefrontal and parietal cortex as being involved in time perception and in temporal decision making. We found that neurons in the medial motor areas, in particular the presupplementary motor area, participate in interval timing in the range of seconds. Monkeys were trained to perform an interval-generation task that required them to determine waiting periods of three different durations. Neuronal activity contributed to the process of retrieving time instructions from visual cues, signaled the initiation of action in a time-selective manner, and developed activity to represent the passage of time. These results specify how medial motor areas take part in initiating actions on the basis of self-generated time estimates.

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Figure 1: Task sequence and distribution of waiting periods.
Figure 2: Three examples of preSMA cells showing instruction responses that were selective for one of the three interval times.
Figure 3: An example of preSMA cells exhibiting instruction responses with graded magnitudes depending on time intervals.
Figure 4: Three examples of pre-SMA cells showing interval-selective preparatory activity before motor initiation.
Figure 5: An example of pre-SMA cells showing preparatory neuronal activity with graded magnitudes that depended on time intervals.
Figure 6: Time courses for averaged normalized responses of time-specific and time-graded preSMA cell populations exhibiting either decay or buildup activity.
Figure 7: Results of exponential curve fitting for population activity including time-specific and time-graded preSMA cell.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physiology, Tohoku University School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan

    Akihisa Mita, Hajime Mushiake, Keisetsu Shima, Yoshiya Matsuzaka & Jun Tanji

  2. Brain Research Institute, Tamagawa University, Tokyo, Machida, Japan

    Jun Tanji

Authors
  1. Akihisa Mita
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  2. Hajime Mushiake
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  3. Keisetsu Shima
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  4. Yoshiya Matsuzaka
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  5. Jun Tanji
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Contributions

A.M. and K.S. conducted the experiments, H.M. and Y.M. conducted the data analyses, H.M. and J.T. supervised the project and J.T. wrote the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jun Tanji.

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Supplementary Figures 1–5 and Supplementary Tables 1–3 (PDF 268 kb)

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Mita, A., Mushiake, H., Shima, K. et al. Interval time coding by neurons in the presupplementary and supplementary motor areas. Nat Neurosci 12, 502–507 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.2272

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