title: Time Adaptation Shows Duration Selectivity in the Human Parietal Cortex.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences, Osaka University, Suita, Japan; School of Psychology, University of Sussex, Brighton, United Kingdom; Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, United Kingdom; Brain Research Unit, Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto University School of Science, Espoo, Finland; Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Masamichi J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Hayashi
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ditye
authors.affiliation: Division of Cerebral Integration, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, Japan.
authors.forename: Tokiko
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Harada
authors.affiliation: Division of Cerebral Integration, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, Japan; Department of Physiological Sciences, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, Okazaki, Japan.
authors.forename: Maho
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hashiguchi
authors.affiliation: Division of Cerebral Integration, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, Japan; Department of Physiological Sciences, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, Okazaki, Japan; Biomedical Imaging Research Center, University of Fukui, Fukui, Japan.
authors.forename: Norihiro
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sadato
authors.affiliation: Brain Research Unit, Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto University School of Science, Espoo, Finland; Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Synnöve
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Carlson
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Vincent
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Walsh
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Sussex, Brighton, United Kingdom; Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, United Kingdom; Department of Neuroinformatics, Araya Brain Imaging, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Ryota
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kanai
mesh_terms: D000222:Adaptation, Physiological; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005260:Female; D064368:Healthy Volunteers; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000502:physiology; D013998:Time Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult