In collaboration with his team, Banerjee unraveled a fascinating clue suggesting that our brains possess the ability to manipulate our perception of time to suit our requirements. Their investigation led them to a peculiar creature from Costa Rica: Alston’s singing mouse, known for its audible vocalizations lasting several seconds. These mice engage in duets, responding to each other's tunes, with songs varying in length and speed.
To understand how the mice's brains control song tempo, the researchers mimicked duets while analyzing the orofacial motor cortex (OMC), a brain region. Over weeks, they recorded neural activity, looking for differences in songs with varying durations and tempos.
The revelation was the phenomenon of temporal scaling in OMC neurons. Instead of encoding absolute time like a clock, these neurons track relative time, adjusting intervals by slowing down or speeding up by 10% or 20%. Banerjee notes that this discovery not only sheds light on how the brain orchestrates vocal communication but may extend to understanding time computation in different brain regions, influencing various behaviors.
Beyond language and music, this insight may unravel how the brain's flexibility allows us to adapt and learn. Banerjee emphasizes the importance of the cortex, our three-pound brain block, in providing flexibility to behavior, allowing us to read a book, send people to the moon, and essentially be who we are. The implications of this discovery could extend to technology, education, and therapy, unlocking the mysteries of our incredibly complex brains.
Related Queries
nervous system
cerebellum
neuron
cranial nerves
axon
acetylcholine
phineas gage
corpus callosum
synapse
thalamus
temporal lobe
occipital lobe
spinal cord
cerebrum
parietal lobe
cerebellum function
parietal lobe function
neurotransmitters
peripheral nervous system
temporal lobe function
pons
action potential
central nervous system
dendrites
thalamus function