Embodying Time in the Brain: A Multi-Dimensional Neuroimaging Meta-Analysis of 95 Duration Processing Studies

Abstract

Time is an omnipresent aspect of almost everything we experience internally or in the external world. The experience of time occurs through such an extensive set of contextual factors that, after decades of research, a unified understanding of its neural substrates is still elusive. In this study, following the recent best-practice guidelines, we conducted a coordinate-based meta-analysis of 95 carefully-selected neuroimaging papers of duration processing. We categorized the included papers into 14 classes of temporal features according to six categorical dimensions. Then, using the activation likelihood estimation (ALE) technique we investigated the convergent activation patterns of each class with a cluster-level family-wise error correction at p < 0.05. The regions most consistently activated across the various timing contexts were the pre-SMA and bilateral insula, consistent with an embodied theory of timing in which abstract representations of duration are rooted in sensorimotor and interoceptive experience, respectively. Moreover, class-specific patterns of activation could be roughly divided according to whether participants were timing auditory sequential stimuli, which additionally activated the dorsal striatum and SMA-proper, or visual single interval stimuli, which additionally activated the right middle frontal and inferior parietal cortices. We conclude that temporal cognition is so entangled with our everyday experience that timing stereotypically common combinations of stimulus characteristics reactivates the sensorimotor systems with which they were first experienced.

The link between space and time along the human cortical hierarchy

“…Importantly, most of these computations take place for both visual and auditory temporal intervals [28]. These results together with many others neuroimaging studies in humans (see for instance [29]- [32] and [33] for a recent review) show a key role of medial premotor cortex (i.e., SMA) in temporal computations across tasks and sensory modalities [34]. A previous work by Hendrikx and colleagues [13] showed the switch between monotonic and unimodal responses to stimulus duration in extrastriate area V5/MT.…”

Multidimensional assessment of time perception along the continuum of Alzheimer’s Disease and evidence of alterations in subjective cognitive decline

“…Moreover, considering previous evidence of deficits in mental time travel in patients with MCI 85 , as well early alterations in episodic autobiographical memory reported in individuals at risk of developing AD 73 , 74 , an investigation of mental time travel along the continuum of AD is also warranted to understand whether early impairments manifest also in time processing at longer timescales. This point is particularly important considering that duration processing appears to rely on different brain mechanisms according to the range of the durations tested: whereas timing of millisecond and second intervals has been shown to involve a network including the SMA, the basal ganglia, the insular cortex, the inferior and middle frontal gyrus as well as the intraparietal sulcus 86 , timing of durations at longer timescales (e.g. minutes and beyond) and memory for durations have been consistently associated with the involvement of the hippocampus 87 .…”

The More Unclear the Hearing, the Faster the Feeling: Speech Comprehension Changes Subjective Speech Rate

“…humans have always yearned for an accurate depiction of time. Our brains have been demonstrated to possess the ability to finely delineate the dynamic temporal changes of both internal and external things (Harvey et al, 2020; Naghibi et al, 2023). In everyday discourse, listeners can identify temporal characteristics within speech.…”