Alston’s study of singing mice shows that the brain can adapt our perception of time; This is a discovery that has important implications for understanding the complex functions of the brain and potential applications in technology and education. Life has a complex pace. Sometimes it moves faster or slower than we want. Yet we adapt. We choose the rhythm of the conversations. We keep up with the crowd walking on the city sidewalk.

“There are many situations where we need to perform the same action at a different speed. So the question is how the brain does it,” says Arkarup Banerjee, an assistant professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

Decoding brain mechanisms

Now Banerjee and her colleagues have found a new clue that suggests the brain alters our timekeeping to suit our needs. And that’s thanks in part to a noisy creature from Costa Rica called Alston’s Singing Mouse.

This particular species is known for its human-audible vocalizations that last several seconds. One mouse will let out a squeaky scream, and the other will respond with its own tune. It is noteworthy that the song varies in length and speed. Banerjee and her team sought to determine how neural circuits in the brains of mice control the tempo of a song.

The researchers pretended to mate with the mice and analyzed an area of ​​the mice’s brains called the orofacial motor cortex (OMC). They recorded the activity of neurons for weeks. They then looked for differences between songs of different duration and tempo.

They found that OMC neurons are involved in a process called temporal scaling. “Instead of encoding absolute time like a clock, neurons keep track of something like relative time,” Banerjee explains. “They actually slow down or speed up the interval. So it’s not one or two seconds, it’s 10%, 20%.”

Broader implications and discoveries

The discovery offers new insights into how the brain produces vocal communication. But Banerjee suspects the implications go beyond language or music. This may help explain how time is calculated in other parts of the brain, allowing us to adjust various behaviors accordingly. And it can tell us more about how our highly complex brains work.

“This three-pound piece of meat allows you to do everything from reading a book to putting a man on the moon,” says Banerjee. “This gives us flexibility. We can change instantly. We adapt. We teach. If everything were stimulus-response, if there were no opportunities to learn, if nothing changed, if there were no long-term goals, we wouldn’t need a brain. We believe the cerebral cortex exists to provide flexibility to behavior.” “

In other words, it helps us become who we are. Banerjee’s discovery could bring science closer to understanding how our brains allow us to interact with the world. The potential outcomes of technology, education and therapy are as limitless as our imagination. Source