Neuroanatomical and neurochemical substrates of timing.

We have come to recognize the brain as a predictive organ, anticipating attributes of the incoming sensory stimulation to guide perception and action in the service of adaptive behaviour. In the quest to understand the neural bases of the modulatory prospective signals that prioritize and select relevant events during perception, one fundamental dimension has until recently been largely overlooked: time. In this Review, we introduce the burgeoning field of temporal attention and illustrate how the brain makes use of various forms of temporal regularities in the environment to guide adaptive behaviour and influence neural processing.

/pdf/anticipated-moments-temporal-structure-in-attention-c01o59u1yg.pdf

Anticipated moments: temporal structure in attention.

Accurate time keeping is of great import in all resuscitation settings and none more so than in the medicolegal minefield of perinatology. Recent cases have shown accurate documentation is of vital importance, especially the recording of times. Two studies have delineated considerable discrepancies in clock times in patient care settings1,2; these may exacerbate any medicolegal issues. A …

https://fn.bmj.com/content/fetalneonatal/89/6/F563.3.full.pdf

Time is of the essence

Memory, autonoetic consciousness, and the self ☆

In the present study, we investigated the relation between cognitive performance and heart rate variability as a function of fitness level. We measured the effect of three cognitive tasks (the psychomotor vigilance task, a temporal orienting task, and a duration discrimination task) on the heart rate variability of two groups of participants: a high-fit group and a low-fit group. Two major novel findings emerged from this study. First, the lowest values of heart rate variability were found during performance of the duration discrimination task, compared to the other two tasks. Second, the results showed a decrement in heart rate variability as a function of the time on task, although only in the low-fit group. Moreover, the high-fit group showed overall faster reaction times than the low-fit group in the psychomotor vigilance task, while there were not significant differences in performance between the two groups of participants in the other two cognitive tasks. In sum, our results highlighted the influence of cognitive processing on heart rate variability. Importantly, both behavioral and physiological results suggested that the main benefit obtained as a result of fitness level appeared to be associated with processes involving sustained attention.

/pdf/cognitive-performance-and-heart-rate-variability-the-3wqhoayjnl.pdf

Cognitive Performance and Heart Rate Variability: The Influence of Fitness Level

The aim of this study was to explore, for the first time in patients, the neural bases of temporal orienting of attention as well as the interrelations with two other effects of temporal preparation: the foreperiod effect and sequential effects. We administered an experimental task to a group of 14 patients with prefrontal lesion, a group of 15 control subjects and a group of 7 patients with a basal ganglia lesion. In the task, a cue was presented (a short versus long line) to inform participants about the time of appearance (early versus late) of a target stimulus, and the duration of the cue-target time intervals (400 versus 1400 ms) was manipulated. In contrast to the control group, patients with right prefrontal lesion showed a clear deficit in the temporal orienting effect. The foreperiod effect was also affected in the group of patients with prefrontal lesion (without lateralization of the deficit), whereas sequential effects were preserved. The group of basal ganglia patients did not show deficits in any of the effects. These findings support the voluntary and strategic nature of the temporal orienting and foreperiod effects, which depend on the prefrontal cortex, as well as the more automatic nature of sequential effects, which do not depend on either prefrontal cortex or frontobasal circuits.

/pdf/temporal-orienting-deficit-after-prefrontal-damage-3zk1jj8b08.pdf

Temporal orienting deficit after prefrontal damage

https://www.ugr.es/~act/paper/10Correa_B&C.pdf

Temporal Preparation, Response Inhibition and Impulsivity.

Aging is accompanied by cognitive decline, although recent research indicates that the rate of decline depends on multiple lifestyle factors. One of such factors is musical practice, an activity that involves several sensory and motor systems and a wide range of high-level cognitive processes. This paper describes the first systematic review and meta-analysis, to our knowledge, of the impact of musical practice on healthy neurocognitive aging. The inclusion criteria for the review required that studies were empirical works in English or Spanish that they explored the effects of musical practice on older people; they included an assessment of cognitive functions and/or an assessment of brain status; and they included a sample of participants aged 59 years or older with no cognitive impairment or brain damage. This review led to the selection of 13 studies: 9 correlational studies involving older musicians and non-musicians and 4 experimental studies involving short-term musical training programs. The results of the meta-analysis showed cognitive and cerebral benefits of musical practice, both in domain-specific functions (auditory perception) and in other rather domain-general functions. Moreover, these benefits seem to protect cognitive domains that usually decline with aging and boost other domains that do not decline with aging. The origin of these benefits may reside, simultaneously, in the specific training of many of these cognitive functions during musical practice (specific training mechanism), in the improvement of compensatory cognitive processes (specific compensatory mechanism), and in the preservation of general functions with a global influence on others, such as perceptual capacity, processing speed, inhibition and attention (general compensatory mechanism). Therefore, musical practice seems to be a promising tool to reduce the impact of cognitive problems associated to aging.

/pdf/musical-practice-as-an-enhancer-of-cognitive-function-in-1thnvzc5aw.pdf

Musical practice as an enhancer of cognitive function in healthy aging - A systematic review and meta-analysis.

https://www.ugr.es/~neurocog/Sitio_web/Neuropsychology_And_Everyday_Activities_files/Trivino%202011.pdf

Mónica Triviño

Papers

Temporal orienting deficit after prefrontal damage

Temporal Preparation, Response Inhibition and Impulsivity.

Musical practice as an enhancer of cognitive function in healthy aging - A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Rhythms can overcome temporal orienting deficit after right frontal damage

Conscious perception in patients with prefrontal damage.