Functional role of the frontal lobe with "brain timer"

2019 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 17K00216
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Cognitive science
• Research Institution: Kindai University
• Principal Investigator: OSHIO Ken-ichi 近畿大学, 医学部, 講師 (30296751)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-04-01 – 2020-03-31
• Keywords: 時間知覚 / 大脳生理学 / 電気生理学 / 前頭葉

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We can stop a stopwatch in ten seconds with eyes closed. This suggests that our brain have timing function such as a “stopwatch”. Nonetheless, it is unclear how physical time is transformed into brain time. Temporal interval is a modality-independent physical attribute which can be perceived whether it is assigned to a visual, auditory or somatic stimulus. The frontal lobe receives inputs from multiple sensory systems and plays a role in integrating sensory information. It is therefore natural to speculate that the frontal lobe would participate in time perception and represent temporal attributes in some way. Monkeys were trained to discriminate between temporal durations associated with visual or auditory stimuli. Neuronal activity was recorded while the subjects were performing the task. We found various types neurons exhibiting phasic activity and sustained activity, and so on, which were associated with temporal processing from the prefrontal cortex and the premotor cortex.

Free Research Field

大脳生理学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

時間は身の回りに溢れる基本的な物理量であるにもかかわらず、脳が具体的にどうやって時間の長さを計っているのかということは未だほとんど分かっていない。うつ病、ADHD、統合失調症といった患者に時間感覚の歪みが見られることも分かってきており、脳内ストップウォッチの解明は、脳の機能を理解するにとどまらず、精神疾患の理解や、精神状態や気分の客観的指標への応用にもつながると期待される。