The Cortico-Basal Ganglia-Cerebellar Pathways of Forming Beat- and Interval-based Temporal Predictions

Poster Session F - Tuesday, April 16, 2024, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Sheraton Hall ABC

Ana Luísa Pinho¹ (agrilopi@uwo.ca), Jörn Diedrichsen, Jessica Grahn; ¹Brain and Mind Institute, Department of Computer Science, Western University, ²Brain and Mind Institute, Department of Computer Science, Department of Statistical and Actuarial Sciences, Western University, ³Brain and Mind Institute, Department of Psychology, Western University

We examine the neural correlates and behaviour phenotype underlying the cognitive ability in humans to form temporal predictions during periodic and aperiodic stream of events. Neuropsychological and imaging studies have provided causal evidence for the existence of two distinct neurocognitive mechanisms involved in the mediation of beat- and single-based predictions with direct contributions from the basal ganglia and the cerebellum, respectively. Yet, little is still known about the pathways of implicit and explicit timing in these two contexts, and to what extent sensory inputs from the cortex can alter them. To this end, we developed six tasks probing beat- and interval-based sequences of events, varying in the type of timing output and sensory domains. Behavioural results on 39 participants show a likely benefit in performance for the beat conditions when compared to the interval conditions, particularly for auditory tasks, thus suggesting a putative selective contribution from basal ganglia during beat-based sequences. Neuroimaging results from functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging data acquired on 31 participants, show bilateral representations of the putamen and the cerebellum during the encoding of temporal sequences. Importantly, these representations remain present in the putamen when contrasting the encoding of beat versus interval, and in the cerebellum when contrasting the reverse. According to our main hypothesis, imaging contrast maps indicate the recruitment of the basal ganglia during beat-based sequences, and the involvement of the cerebellum during interval-based sequences. Upcoming data analyses are intended to provide more insights about the functional specificity and connectivity of these two mechanisms.

Topic Area: PERCEPTION & ACTION: Other