Common neural mechanisms supporting time judgements in humans and monkeys

There has been an increasing interest in identifying the biological underpinnings of human time perception, for which purpose research in non-human primates (NHP) is common. Although previous work, based on behaviour, suggests that similar mechanisms support time perception across species, the neural correlates of time estimation in humans and NHP have not been directly compared. In this study, we assess whether brain evoked responses during a time categorization task are similar across species. Specifically, we assess putative differences in post-interval evoked potentials as a function of perceived duration in human EEG (N = 24) and local field potential (LFP) and spike recordings in pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA) of one monkey. Event-related potentials (ERPs) differed significantly after the presentation of the temporal interval between “short” and “long” perceived durations in both species, even when the objective duration of the stimuli was the same. Interestingly, the polarity of the reported ERPs was reversed for incorrect trials (i.e., the ERP of a “long” stimulus looked like the ERP of a “short” stimulus when a time categorization error was made). Hence, our results show that post-interval potentials reflect the perceived (rather than the objective) duration of the presented time interval in both NHP and humans. In addition, firing rates in monkey’s pre-SMA also differed significantly between short and long perceived durations and were reversed in incorrect trials. Together, our results show that common neural mechanisms support time categorization in NHP and humans, thereby suggesting that NHP are a good model for investigating human time perception.