Experience-related remapping of temporal encoding by striatal ensembles

Temporal control of action is key for a broad range of behaviors and is disrupted in human diseases such as Parkinson’s disease and schizophrenia. A brain structure that is critical for temporal control is the dorsal striatum. Experience and learning can influence dorsal striatal neuronal activity, but it is unknown how these neurons change with experience in contexts which require precise temporal control of movement. We investigated this question by recording from medium-spiny neurons (MSNs) in the dorsal striatum of mice as they gained experience controlling their actions in time. We leveraged an interval timing task optimized for mice which required them to “switch” response ports after enough time had passed without receiving a reward. We report three main results. First, we found that time-related ramping activity and response-related activity increased with more experience. Second, temporal decoding by MSN ensembles improved with experience and was predominantly driven by time-related ramping activity. Finally, we found that some MSNs had differential modulation on error trials. These findings enhance our understanding of dorsal striatal temporal processing by demonstrating how MSN ensembles can evolve with experience. Our results can be linked to temporal habituation and illuminate striatal flexibility during interval timing, which may be relevant for human disease.

Developmental Characteristics of Temporal Control of Movement in Preschool and School Children of Different Ages

The purpose of this study was to investigate the temporal control of repetitive tapping in children, ages 3 to 11 ( N = 99). The subjects tapped in synchrony with an auditory pulse (synchronizing phase) at nine different tempos (interpulse intervals of 370, 420, 500, 540, 620, 720, 850, 1000, and 1300 msec.) and were then asked to maintain the same tapping tempo without the aid of an auditory pulse (continuing phase). The time difference between the onset of the pulse and the tap in the synchronizing phase and intertap interval in the continuing phase were measured. Both the time difference between the timing pulse and the tap, and variation of intertap intervals were smallest at the tempo of 500 msec. for all age groups. The variation of the intertap interval at slower tempos was greater than that at fast tempos in all age groups. This suggests that the accurate interval (tempo) of all the subjects was around 500 to 600 msec At slower tempos, the intertap interval had a tendency to become slightly shorter with time and converged at intertap interval 500 to 600 msec. It is suggested that the preferred tempo was superior to the prescribed tempo in the continuing phase for younger subjects. Differing patterns of response in the movement sequence were observed between younger and older subjects in the movement sequence. The changes in temporal control over the age groups are thought to appear at between 5 and 7 years of age.