ATTENTIONAL PROCESSING OF TEMPORAL INFORMATION

描述（由申请人提供）：基本的行为过程，如联想学习，速率计算和决策至关重要地依赖于秒到分钟范围内的时间间隔的估计和再现（间隔计时）。这些过程在帕金森病、亨廷顿病和精神分裂症中被破坏。这个项目将通过调查事件特征对时间追踪能力的影响，进一步加深我们对这些疾病中认知过程中断的理解。大多数时间理论的基本假设之一是，受试者能够很容易地从输入刺激中抽象出时间信息，并根据这个线索调整他们的行为，而不考虑实时事件的非时间属性。相反，有证据表明，动物和人类对计时信号的特性都非常敏感。这些数据支持了一种资源分配理论，该理论认为，专注于间隔计时的注意力和记忆资源可能会被重新分配给其他认知过程，这反过来可能会阻碍计时。本研究的主要目的是利用行为、生理和计算相结合的方法来研究秒到分钟（间隔时间）范围内时间信息的注意加工。在行为上，我们将研究当被试经历一个或多个持续时间时，事件的非时间特征对注意力和记忆资源重新分配的影响。在生理水平上，我们建议使用神经心理药理学方法解剖参与内部时钟与资源分配机制相互作用的神经回路，特别是通过在神经回路的关键部位局部输注特定的激动剂和拮抗剂来操纵它并获得其功能的知识。在计算上，我们建议评估两种资源重新分配模型，以解决行为和药物操作对时间信息的注意处理的影响，并得出值得进一步实验研究的预测。这些研究将有助于阐明当我们注意到时间刺激时所涉及的行为、神经和计算机制，并将提高我们对注意力因素对需要时间信息的复杂认知过程的影响的理解，这些过程可能在帕金森、亨廷顿和精神分裂症等疾病中被破坏。该项目的结果可用于设计早期评估此类疾病的行为措施，并了解当这些基底功能失调时认知过程被破坏。这一信息对于评估此类疾病动物模型中潜在治疗策略的价值/效率至关重要。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Fundamental behavioral processes such as associative learning, rate calculation and decision making crucially rely on estimation and reproduction of time intervals in the seconds-to-minutes range (interval timing). These processes are disrupted in Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, and Schizophrenia. This project will further our understanding of the disruptions of cognitive processes in these disorders by investigating the impact of characteristics of events on the ability to keep track of time. One of the underlying assumptions of most timing theories is that subjects are able to readily abstract from the input stimulus the temporal information, and to tune their behavior according to this cue, irrespective of non-temporal properties the real timed event. In contrast, evidence suggests that both animal and human timing is highly sensitive to properties of the timed signal. Such data support a resource allocation theory which posits that attentional and memory resources dedicated to interval timing may be re-allocated for other cognitive processes, which in turn may hinder timing. The main objective of this proposal is to study attentional processing of temporal information in the seconds-to-minutes range (interval timing) using combined behavioral, physiological, and computational approaches. Behaviorally, we will study the effects of non-temporal features of events on the re-allocation of attentional and memory resources when subjects time one or multiple durations. At the physiological level, we propose to dissect the neural circuits involved in the interaction between the internal clock and the resource allocation mechanisms using neuropsychopharmacological methods, specifically by local infusions of specific agonist and antagonists in key sites of the neural circuit in order to manipulate it and gain knowledge of its functioning. Computationally, we propose to evaluate two models of re-allocation of resources, in order to address the effect of behavioral and pharmacological manipulations on attentional processing of temporal information, and to arrive at predictions that warrant further experimental investigation. The studies will help elucidate the behavioral, neural, and computational mechanisms involved when we pay attention to timed stimuli, and will improve our understanding of the impact of attentional factors on complex cognitive processes that require temporal information, processes which may be disrupted in disorders like Parkinson, Huntington, and Schizophrenia. The results of the project can be used to devise behavioral measures for the early assessment of such disorders, and to understand the cognitive processes disrupted when these substrates are dysfunctional. This information is crucial to assessing the value/efficiency of potential treatment strategies in animal models of such disorders.