Topic: predictive activity

Animals can discriminate time intervals ranging from microseconds to days, which serves to regulate functions as diverse as sound localization to circadian rhythmicity (Mauk and Buonomano, 2004; Buhusi and Meck, 2005). While the mechanisms that enable temporal processing at the microsecond and day scales are relatively well understood (Jeffress, 1948; Rosbash and Hall, 1989), those that enable animals to discriminate time in the behaviorally relevant seconds to minutes scale are not clear. It is believed that there might be at least two distinct interval timing mechanisms, one involving the ce