Fundamental behavioral processes such as associative learning, rate calculation and decision making crucially rely on estimation and reproduction of time intervals in the seconds-to-minutes range (interval timing). One of the underlying assumptions of most timing theories is that subjects are able to readily abstract from the input stimulus the temporal information, and to tune their behavior according to this cue, irrespective of non-temporal properties the real timed event. In contrast, evidence suggests that both animal and human timing is highly sensitive to properties of the timed signal thus supporting the notion of an """"""""attentional switch/gate"""""""" interval timing mechanism. The objective of this proposal is to study attentional processing of temporal information in the seconds-to-minutes range (interval timing) using a multi-level, behavioral, neuropharmacological, and computational approach. Behaviorally, the investigator will study a newly developed interval timing procedure shown to engage attentional processing of temporal cues. Within this procedure, the investigator proposes to evaluate the impact of the characteristics of stimuli on timing and memory for timing. Pharmacologically, the investigator proposes to dissociate the clock effects and attentional effects of specific dopamine agonists and antagonists on interval timing. We also propose to investigate the neural substrates involved in the attentional switch/gate mechanism of timing. Computationally, the investigator proposes to develop a model of the attentional switch/gate mechanism of interval timing in order to address the effect of behavioral and pharmacological manipulations on attentional processing of temporal information. The studies will inform current models of timing, time perception, and neuropharmacology of interval timing. They will provide new means for understanding the impact of attentional factors on complex cognitive mechanisms that require temporal processing. They will help elucidate the pharmacological and neural basis of attentional processing of temporal information
| Buhusi, Catalin V; Reyes, Marcelo B; Gathers, Cody-Aaron et al. (2018) Inactivation of the Medial-Prefrontal Cortex Impairs Interval Timing Precision, but Not Timing Accuracy or Scalar Timing in a Peak-Interval Procedure in Rats. Front Integr Neurosci 12:20 |
| Buhusi, Catalin V; Oprisan, Sorinel A; Buhusi, Mona (2016) Clocks within Clocks: Timing by Coincidence Detection. Curr Opin Behav Sci 8:207-213 |
| Oprisan, Sorinel A; Dix, Steven; Buhusi, Catalin V (2014) Phase resetting and its implications for interval timing with intruders. Behav Processes 101:146-53 |
| Oprisan, Sorinel A; Buhusi, Catalin V (2014) What is all the noise about in interval timing? Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 369:20120459 |
| Reyes, Marcelo Bussotti; Buhusi, Catalin V (2014) What is learned during simultaneous temporal acquisition? An individual-trials analysis. Behav Processes 101:32-7 |
| Buhusi, Catalin V; Matthews, Alexander R (2014) Effect of distracter preexposure on the reset of an internal clock. Behav Processes 101:72-80 |
| Oprisan, Sorinel A; Buhusi, Catalin V (2013) How noise contributes to time-scale invariance of interval timing. Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys 87:052717 |
| Buhusi, Catalin V; Oprisan, Sorinel A (2013) Time-scale invariance as an emergent property in a perceptron with realistic, noisy neurons. Behav Processes 95:60-70 |
| Buhusi, Mona; Scripa, Ioana; Williams, Christina L et al. (2013) Impaired interval timing and spatial-temporal integration in mice deficient in CHL1, a gene associated with schizophrenia. Timing Time Percept 1:21-38 |
| Oprisan, Sorinel A; Buhusi, Catalin V (2013) Why noise is useful in functional and neural mechanisms of interval timing? BMC Neurosci 14:84 |
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