Precision timing with α-β oscillatory coupling: stopwatch or motor control?

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Precise timing is crucial for many behaviors ranging from street crossing, conversational speech, to athletic performance. The precision of motor timing has been suggested to result from the strength of phase-amplitude coupling (PAC) between the phase of alpha oscillations (α, 8-12 Hz) and the power of beta activity (β, 14-30 Hz), herein referred to as α-β PAC. The amplitude of β oscillations has been proposed to code for temporally relevant information, and the locking of β power to the phase of α oscillations to maintain timing precision. Motor timing precision has at least two sources of variability: variability of timekeeping mechanism and variability of motor control. There is ambiguity to with of these two factors α-β PAC could be ascribed to. Whether α-β PAC indexes precision of internal timekeeping mechanisms like a stopwatch, or α-β PAC indexes motor control precision is unclear. To disentangle these two hypotheses, we tested how oscillatory coupling at different stages of time reproduction related to temporal precision. Human participants perceived, and subsequently reproduced, a time interval while magnetoencephalography was recorded. The data show a robust α-β PAC during both the encoding and the reproduction of a temporal interval, a pattern which could not be predicted for by the motor control account. Specifically, we found that timing precision resulted from the tradeoff between the strength of α-β PAC during the encoding and during the reproduction of intervals. We interpret these results as supporting evidence for the hypothesis that α-β PAC codes for precision of temporal representations in the human brain.</jats:p><jats:sec><jats:title>Highlights</jats:title><jats:list list-type="simple"><jats:list-item><jats:label>-</jats:label><jats:p>Encoding and reproducing temporal intervals implicate α-β PAC.</jats:p></jats:list-item><jats:list-item><jats:label>-</jats:label><jats:p>α-β PAC does not represent solely motor control.</jats:p></jats:list-item><jats:list-item><jats:label>-</jats:label><jats:p>α-β PAC maintains the precision of temporal representations.</jats:p></jats:list-item></jats:list></jats:sec>

Temporal context actively shapes EEG signatures of time perception

“…Although beta power has been proposed to reflect motor inhibition (Alegre et al, 2004;Hwang, Ghuman, Manoach, Jones, & Luna, 2014;Kononowicz & van Rijn, 2015;Kühn et al, 2004) and most studies on the link between beta power and timing have a strong motor component, our results suggest that synchronized beta oscillations also play a role during interval perception after which no immediate motor response is required. This finding complements recent studies showing that the accuracy and precision of time estimates depend on beta (Wiener et al, 2018) and alpha-beta coupling (Kononowicz, Sander, van Rijn, & van Wassenhove, 2019). Additionally, the current global context effect on beta is in line with Wiener et al's finding that longer previous durations increased beta power in the current trial.…”