Neuroscientists at the Champalimaud Foundation have discovered an “internal clock” in the brain, which paves the way for a greater perception of time and which could “foster the development of new therapeutic targets” for diseases such as Parkinson’s and Huntington’s.
In this new study by the Learning Laboratory of the Champalimaud Foundation, published Thursday in the scientific journal Natural neuroscienceThe researchers were able to artificially slow or speed up the patterns of neural activity in the mice, distorting their assessment of the duration of time and providing “the most compelling causal evidence yet about how the brain’s internal clock directs behavior,” he adds. The institution in a statement about the study.
Time in seconds to minutes
“Unlike more common circadian clocks, which govern our 24-hour circadian rhythms and shape our daily lives, from sleep-wake cycles to metabolism, little is known about how the body works. measures time On a scale from seconds to minutes,” the statement reads.
In light of this, the team of neuroscientists focused their investigations on this time scale, in which much of everyday behavior occurs. In practice, the researchers trained rats to discriminate between different time periods and found that activity in the striatum, a deep region of the brain, followed predictable patterns that changed at different speeds.
“When animals report a certain period of time as longer, the activity evolves more rapidly; when they report it as shorter, the activity evolves more slowly,” he presented the conclusions of the investigation.
To establish causation, the team turned to a technique already used by neuroscientists, temperature, in order to alter the speed of neural dynamics without disturbing their pattern.
To test this tool in mice, they developed a thermoelectric device designed to focally heat or cool the striatum while recording neural activity.
“We took care not to cool the area too much, as that would interrupt the activity, and not to overheat it, which would run the risk of causing irreparable damage,” said Margarida Peixeira, one of the study’s lead authors.
“Temperature gave us a button to extend or contract neural activity at the right time, so we applied this manipulation in the context of behavior,” explained Phillip Rodrigues, another lead author of the study.
By providing new insights into the causal relationship between neural activity and timing function, the findings of this research, according to the statement, “may promote the development of novel therapeutic targets for debilitating diseases such as Parkinson’s disease and Huntington’s disease, which involve weather-related symptoms and striatal impairment.”
“Friendly zombie fanatic. Analyst. Coffee buff. Professional music specialist. Communicator.”
