Time Receptors

American scientists from the Michigan Institute of Technology have discovered special nerve cells in the brain of monkeys that remember the sequence of events occurring in time.

The sense of time is one of the most important functions of the brain. The human brain not only processes the flow of images and sounds coming from the outside world, but also has a unique ability to remember the sequence in which they arrive. However, the mechanism of this phenomenon has so far remained undisclosed. How does your brain remember that you took a shower before breakfast, and not the other way around?

For decades, neurophysiologists have assumed that special "timestamps" are postponed in the brain for every event that happens to us in life, which allows us to navigate through time or determine the prescription of the last event. Nevertheless, these ideas did not go beyond hypotheses and there was no concrete evidence of the existence of "timestamps". At least until the last moment.

A group of researchers led by Professor Ann Graybiel managed to find groups of neurons encoding time with a high degree of accuracy in the primate brain. "Each event leaves its own imprint in the brain, and the reminder is simple: going through all the timestamps in reverse order, you find the one that coincides with the desired event," the authors explain the essence of their discovery. These nerve cells are located in the prefrontal cortex and striatum, parts of the brain that play an important role in learning, movement and control of thinking.

The researchers trained two macaques to perform the simplest test for visual-motor reaction – to press a button in response to a signal – and found that certain neurons one after another generated an action potential at certain time intervals – 100, 110, 150 milliseconds, etc. after the signal to action.

According to experts, this work brilliantly demonstrates how the brain perceives time. "We have receptors for light, sound, touch, smell, heat or cold, but there are no time receptors. This feeling is entirely created by the brain," said Peter Strick, a professor of neuroscience from Pittsburgh.

This type of time management is vital for performing everyday tasks, whether it's driving a car or playing the piano.

Scientists express the hope that the detection of "time receptors" will be useful for patients suffering from Parkinson's disease, who often have a disturbed sense of time, which makes them uncomfortable when performing tasks that require rhythm, or creates the illusion of slowing down time. Exposure to "time cells" with the help of special devices or drugs will help get rid of Parkinson's symptoms.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru based on the materials of Science Daily: Time-keeping Brain Neurons Discovered02.11.2009