A DNA test to sex most birds.

Understanding how sensory and motor processes are temporally integrated to control behavior in the hundredths of milliseconds-to-minutes range is a fascinating problem given that the basic electrophysiological properties of neurons operate on a millisecond timescale. Single-unit recording studies in monkeys have identified localized timing circuits, whereas neuropsychological studies of humans who have damage to the basal ganglia have indicated that core structures, such as the cortico-thalamic-basal ganglia circuit, play an important role in timing and time perception. Taken together, these data suggest that a core timing mechanism interacts with context-dependent areas. This idea of a temporal hub with a distributed network is used to investigate the abstract properties of interval tuning as well as temporal illusions and intersensory timing. We conclude by proposing that the interconnections built into this core timing mechanism are designed to provide a form of degeneracy as protection against injury,...

Neural basis of the perception and estimation of time

Music as Cognition.

Humans share with other animals an ability to measure the passage of physical time and subjectively experience a sense of time passing. Subjective time has hallmark qualities, akin to other senses, which can be accounted for by formal, psychological, and neurobiological models of the internal clock. These include first-order principles, such as changes in clock speed and how temporal memories are stored, and second-order principles, including timescale invariance, multisensory integration, rhythmical structure, and attentional time-sharing. Within these principles there are both typical individual differences—influences of emotionality, thought speed, and psychoactive drugs—and atypical differences in individuals affected with certain clinical disorders (e.g., autism, Parkinson's disease, and schizophrenia). This review summarizes recent behavioral and neurobiological findings and provides a theoretical framework for considering how changes in the properties of the internal clock impact time perception and other psychological domains.

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Properties of the Internal Clock: First- and Second-Order Principles of Subjective Time

Colour polymorphisms (CP’s) continue to be of interest to evolutionary biologists because of their general tractability, importance in studies of selection and potential role in speciation. Since some of the earliest studies of CP, it has been evident that alternative colour morphs often differ in features other than colour. Here we review the rapidly accumulating evidence concerning the genetic mechanisms underlying correlations between CP and other traits in animals. We find that evidence for genetic correlations is now available for taxonomically diverse systems and that physical linkage and regulatory mechanisms including transcription factors, cis-regulatory elements, and hormone systems provide pathways for the ready accumulation or modification of these correlations. Moreover, physical linkage and regulatory mechanisms may both contribute to genetic correlation in some of the best-studied systems. These results raise the possibility that negative frequency-dependent selection and disruptive selection might often be acting on suites of traits and that the cumulative effects of such selection, as well as correlational selection, may be important to CP persistence and evolution. We consider additional evolutionary implications. We recommend continued efforts to elucidate the mechanisms underlying CP-correlated characters and the more frequent application of comparative approaches, looking at related species that vary in character correlations and patterns of selection. We also recommend efforts to elucidate how frequency-dependent selection may act on suites of characters.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1365-294X.2010.04846.x

Colour polymorphism and correlated characters: genetic mechanisms and evolution

Differential effects of amphetamine and haloperidol on temporal reproduction: dopaminergic regulation of attention and clock speed.

Emotional modulation of interval timing and time perception.

In many species, courtship signals enhance reproductive function in the receiver. How these social signals are processed by the brain, particularly how they induce an endocrine response, is not well understood. Songbirds provide an ideal model in which to study this phenomenon because of the large existing literature on both their auditory neurobiology and the control of their reproductive physiology by environmental cues. To date, all of the relevant studies on songbirds have involved measuring the effects of male vocalizations on ovarian function over a period of weeks, a time course that precludes detailed analysis of the neuroendocrine mechanisms operating during song perception. We played recordings of conspecific male song to laboratory-housed female white-throated sparrows and quantified the resulting rapid changes in LH as well as the induction of the immediate early gene Egr-1in the GnRH system and mediobasal hypothalamus (MBH). Hearing song for 42 min induced LH release and Egr-1 expression in t...

Rapid Neuroendocrine Responses to Auditory Courtship Signals

Emotions are powerful drivers of distortions in time perception. Recent work continues to support arousal and attentional mechanisms of emotion-driven temporal distortions. A possible memory-related mechanism and various modulatory factors, such as age, gender, and psychopathology, have also been implicated in such distortions. Beyond the rich behavioral literature on this topic, neurobiological substrates associated with emotion-driven temporal distortions have begun to be identified and represent an important next step for research within this domain. The study of emotion-driven temporal distortions holds great promise for advancing our understanding of this perceptual phenomenon and how it may play a functional role in mediating changes in cognition, behavior, and emotion.

Recent advances in understanding emotion-driven temporal distortions.

Interest in the relationship between emotion and time perception has noticeably increased in the past few years (Buhusi and Meck, 2005; Droit-Volet and Meck, 2007; Craig, 2009; Droit-Volet et al., 2011). Most of this recent work has used emotional stimuli, such as faces (e.g., Droit-Volet et al., 2004; Tipples, 2008), pictures (e.g., Angrilli et al., 1997; Grommet et al., 2011), and sounds (e.g., Noulhaine et al., 2007) to understand how emotion can change the subjective experience of short intervals of time. Efforts have largely focused on determining what these findings reveal about how time can be distorted and identifying the mechanisms responsible for flexibly modulating these distortions. In this issue, Schirmer (2011) reviews various theories that attempt to explain the mechanisms underlying emotional influences on time perception and proposes a hybrid theory to better support findings in the field. Further research will be necessary to support or contradict the proposed mechanistic influences of emotion on timing. While the value of this work is clear, it is equally important to address how timing research can inform affective science and affective disorders, a question that has thus far received little attention within the field. Specifically, a better understanding of how time is perceived in anxiety-provoking contexts could be important in fully appreciating the processes underlying the experience of anxiety.

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Jessica I. Lake

Papers

Differential effects of amphetamine and haloperidol on temporal reproduction: dopaminergic regulation of attention and clock speed.

Emotional modulation of interval timing and time perception.

Rapid Neuroendocrine Responses to Auditory Courtship Signals

Recent advances in understanding emotion-driven temporal distortions.

Unpredictability and uncertainty in anxiety: a new direction for emotional timing research.