timing mechanisms
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Timing is everything, but our understanding of the neural mechanisms of timing remains limited, particularly for timing of sequences. Temporal sequences can be represented relative to a recurrent beat (beat-based or relative timing), or as a series of absolute durations (non-beat-based or absolute timing). Neuroimaging work suggests involvement of the basal ganglia, supplementary motor area (SMA), the premotor cortices, and the cerebellum in both beat- and non-beat-based timing. Here we examined how beat-based timing and non-beat-based sequence timing were affected by modulating excitability of the supplementary motor area, the right cerebellum, and the bilateral dorsal premotor cortices, using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). Participants were subjected to a sham stimulation session, followed an active stimulation session where anodal or cathodal 2mA tDCS was applied to the SMA, right premotor cortex, left premotor cortex, or the cerebellum. During both sessions, participants discriminated changes in rhythms which differentially engage beat-based or non-beat-based timing. Rhythm discrimination performance was improved by increasing SMA excitability, and impaired by decreasing SMA excitability. This polarity-dependent effect on rhythm discrimination was absent for cerebellar or premotor cortex stimulation, suggesting a crucial role of the SMA and/or its functionally connected networks in rhythmic timing mechanisms.

The aim of the present study was to test how the perception of an emotional stimulus colors the temporal context of judgment and modifies the participant’s perception of the current neutral duration. Participants were given two ready-set-go tasks consisting of a distribution of short (0.5–0.9 s) or long sample intervals (0.9–1.3 s) with an overlapping 0.9-s interval. Additional intervals were introduced in the temporal distribution. These were neutral for the two temporal tasks in a control condition and emotional for the short, but not the long temporal task in an emotion condition. The results indicated a replication of a kind of Vierordt’s law in the control condition, i.e., the temporal judgment toward the mean of the distribution of sample intervals (central tendency effect). However, there was a shift in the central tendency effect in the emotion condition indicating a general bias in the form of an overestimation of current intervals linked to the presence of a few emotional stimuli among the previous intervals. This finding is entirely consistent with timing mechanisms driven by prior duration context, particularly experience of prior emotional duration.

AbstractCircadian clocks are ubiquitous timing mechanisms that generate approximately 24-h rhythms in cellular and bodily functions across nearly all living species. These internal clock systems enable living organisms to anticipate and respond to daily changes in their environment in a timely manner, optimizing temporal physiology and behaviors. Dysregulation of circadian rhythms by genetic and environmental risk factors increases susceptibility to multiple diseases, particularly cancers. A growing number of studies have revealed dynamic crosstalk between circadian clocks and cancer pathways, providing mechanistic insights into the therapeutic utility of circadian rhythms in cancer treatment. This review will discuss the roles of circadian rhythms in cancer pathogenesis, highlighting the recent advances in chronotherapeutic approaches for improved cancer treatment.

Circadian clocks are biological timing mechanisms that generate 24-h rhythms of physiology and behavior, exemplified by cycles of sleep/wake, hormone release, and metabolism. The adaptive value of clocks is evident when internal body clocks and daily environmental cycles are mismatched, such as in the case of shift work and jet lag or even mistimed eating, all of which are associated with physiological disruption and disease. Studies with animal and human models have also unraveled an important role of functional circadian clocks in modulating cellular and organismal responses to physiological cues (ex., food intake, exercise), pathological insults (e.g. virus and parasite infections), and medical interventions (e.g. medication). With growing knowledge of the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying circadian physiology and pathophysiology, it is becoming possible to target circadian rhythms for disease prevention and treatment. In this review, we discuss recent advances in circadian research and the potential for therapeutic applications that take patient circadian rhythms into account in treating disease.

Animals communicating interactively with conspecifics often time their broadcasts to avoid overlapping interference, to emit leading, as opposed to following, signals or to synchronize their signalling rhythms. Each of these adjustments becomes more difficult as the number of interactants increases beyond a pair. Among acoustic species, insects and anurans generally deal with the problem of group signalling by means of ‘selective attention’ in which they focus on several close or conspicuous neighbours and ignore the rest. In these animals, where signalling and receiving are often dictated by sex, the process of selective attention in signallers may have a parallel counterpart in receivers, which also focus on close neighbours. In birds and mammals, local groups tend to be extended families or clans, and group signalling may entail complex timing mechanisms that allow for attention to all individuals. In general, the mechanisms that allow animals to communicate in groups appear to be fully interwoven with the basic process of rhythmic signalling. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Synchrony and rhythm interaction: from the brain to behavioural ecology’.

This review paper discusses rhythmic interactions and distinguishes them from non-rhythmic interactions. We report on communicative behaviours in social and sexual contexts, as found in dyads of humans, non-human primates, non-primate mammals, birds, anurans and insects. We discuss observed instances of rhythm in dyadic interactions, identify knowledge gaps and propose suggestions for future research. We find that most studies on rhythmicity in interactive signals mainly focus on one modality (acoustic or visual) and we suggest more work should be performed on multimodal signals. Although the social functions of interactive rhythms have been fairly well described, developmental research on rhythms used to regulate social interactions is still lacking. Future work should also focus on identifying the exact timing mechanisms involved. Rhythmic signalling behaviours are widespread and critical in regulating social interactions across taxa, but many questions remain unexplored. A multidisciplinary, comparative cross-species approach may help provide answers. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Synchrony and rhythm interaction: from the brain to behavioural ecology’.

Abstract Internet of things is one of the most important technologies in the last century which covers various domains such as wireless sensor networks. Wireless sensor networks consist of a large number of sensor nodes that are scattered in an environment and collect information from the surrounding environment and send it to a central station. One of the most important problems in these networks is saving energy consumption of nodes and consequently increasing lifetime of networks. Work has been done in various fields to achieve this goal, one of which is clustering and the use of sleep timing mechanisms in wireless sensor networks. Therefore, in this article, we have examined the existing protocols in this field, especially LEACH-based clustering protocols. The proposed method tries to optimize the energy consumption of nodes by using genetic-based clustering as well as a sleep scheduling mechanism based on the colonial competition algorithm. The results of this simulation show that our proposed method has improved network life (by 18%) and average energy consumption (by 11%) and reduced latency in these networks (by 17%).

AbstractTiming mechanisms play a key role in the biology of coral reef fish. Typically, fish larvae leave their reef after hatching, stay for a period in the open ocean before returning to the reef for settlement. During this dispersal, larvae use a time-compensated sun compass for orientation. However, the timing of settlement and how coral reef fish keep track of time via endogenous timing mechanisms is poorly understood. Here, we have studied the behavioural and genetic basis of diel rhythms in the clown anemonefish Amphiprion ocellaris. We document a behavioural shift from nocturnal larvae to diurnal adults, while juveniles show an intermediate pattern of activity which potentially indicates flexibility in the timing of settlement on a host anemone. qRTPCR analysis of six core circadian clock genes (bmal1, clocka, cry1b, per1b, per2, per3) reveals rhythmic gene expression patterns that are comparable in larvae and juveniles, and so do not reflect the corresponding activity changes. By establishing an embryonic cell line, we demonstrate that clown anemonefish possess an endogenous clock with similar properties to that of the zebrafish circadian clock. Furthermore, our study provides a first basis to study the multi-layered interaction of clocks from fish, anemones and their zooxanthellae endosymbionts.

ABSTRACTRostro-caudal patterning of vertebrates depends on the temporally progressive activation of HOX genes within axial stem cells that fuel axial embryo elongation. Whether the pace of sequential activation of HOX genes, the 'HOX clock', is controlled by intrinsic chromatin-based timing mechanisms or by temporal changes in extrinsic cues remains unclear. Here, we studied HOX clock pacing in human pluripotent stem cell-derived axial progenitors differentiating into diverse spinal cord motor neuron subtypes. We show that the progressive activation of caudal HOX genes is controlled by a dynamic increase in FGF signaling. Blocking the FGF pathway stalled induction of HOX genes, while a precocious increase of FGF, alone or with GDF11 ligand, accelerated the HOX clock. Cells differentiated under accelerated HOX induction generated appropriate posterior motor neuron subtypes found along the human embryonic spinal cord. The pacing of the HOX clock is thus dynamically regulated by exposure to secreted cues. Its manipulation by extrinsic factors provides synchronized access to multiple human neuronal subtypes of distinct rostro-caudal identities for basic and translational applications.This article has an associated ‘The people behind the papers’ interview.