TY  - JOUR
A1  - Pollatos, Olga
A1  - Yeldesbay, Azamat
A1  - Pikovskij, Arkadij
A1  - Rosenblum, Michael
T1  - How much time has passed? Ask your heart
JF  - Frontiers in neurorobotics
N2  - Internal signals like one's heartbeats are centrally processed via specific pathways and both their neural representations as well as their conscious perception (interoception) provide key information for many cognitive processes. Recent empirical findings propose that neural processes in the insular cortex, which are related to bodily signals, might constitute a neurophysiological mechanism for the encoding of duration. Nevertheless, the exact nature of such a proposed relationship remains unclear. We aimed to address this question by searching for the effects of cardiac rhythm on time perception by the use of a duration reproduction paradigm. Time intervals used were of 0.5, 2, 3, 7, 10, 14, 25, and 40s length. In a framework of synchronization hypothesis, measures of phase locking between the cardiac cycle and start/stop signals of the reproduction task were calculated to quantify this relationship. The main result is that marginally significant synchronization indices (Sls) between the heart cycle and the time reproduction responses for the time intervals of 2, 3, 10, 14, and 25s length were obtained, while results were not significant for durations of 0.5, 7, and 40s length. On the single participant level, several subjects exhibited some synchrony between the heart cycle and the time reproduction responses, most pronounced for the time interval of 25s (8 out of 23 participants for 20% quantile). Better time reproduction accuracy was not related with larger degree of phase locking, but with greater vagal control of the heart. A higher interoceptive sensitivity (IS) was associated with a higher synchronization index (SI) for the 2s time interval only. We conclude that information obtained from the cardiac cycle is relevant for the encoding and reproduction of time in the time span of 2-25s. Sympathovagal tone as well as interoceptive processes mediate the accuracy of time estimation.
KW  - time interval reproduction
KW  - synchronization
KW  - heart cycle
KW  - interoception
KW  - interoceptive sensitivity
Y1  - 2014
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbot.2014.00015
SN  - 1662-5218
VL  - 8
SP  - 1
EP  - 9
PB  - Frontiers Research Foundation
CY  - Lausanne
ER  -