Sub-second and multi-second dopamine dynamics underlie variability in human time perception

Abstract

Timing behaviour and the perception of time are fundamental to cognitive and emotional processes in humans. In non-human model organisms, the neuromodulator dopamine has been associated with variations in timing behaviour, but the connection between variations in dopamine levels and the human experience of time has not been directly assessed. Here, we report how dopamine levels in human striatum, measured with sub-second temporal resolution during awake deep brain stimulation surgery, relate to participants perceptual judgements of time intervals. Fast, phasic, dopaminergic signals were associated with underestimation of temporal intervals, whereas slower, tonic, decreases in dopamine were associated with poorer temporal precision. Our findings suggest a delicate and complex role for the dynamics and tone of dopaminergic signals in the conscious experience of time in humans.

Expected reward value and reward prediction errors reinforce but also interfere with human time perception

“…Wiener and colleagues identified an association between dopaminergic system genes and timing in humans (Wiener, et al, 2011). More recently, it has been demonstrated that rapid changes in dopamine neuron activity in mice (Jakob et al, 2022), manipulation of dopamine neuron activity using optogenetic methods in mice (Soares et al, 2016), and rapid (i.e., sub-second) and slow (i.e., several seconds) changes in dopamine levels in humans affects timing behavior and time perception (Sadibolova, et al, 2024; Sadibolova, et al, 2022; Terhune, et al, 2016). Notably, many of the methods used to implicate, measure, or manipulate dopamine levels during instrumental timing behavior is also used to investigate dopamine’s role in instrumental (and Pavlovian) reinforcement and learning (Frank & Fossella, 2011; Kishida & Sands, 2021).…”