Identification of anticipatory brain activity in a time discrimination task

The purpose of this study was to investigate anticipatory functions in temporal cognition, identifying the presence of proactive brain processing specifically preceding a time discrimination task. To this aim, two discriminative response tasks (DRTs) were employed: a feature DRT and a temporal (T-DRT). While the F-DRT required discrimination among different geometrical shapes, the T-DRT required discrimination among different stimulus durations. Specifically, this study investigated the role of premotor and prefrontal cortices, and sensory visual areas in preparatory activity preceding time-processing by electroencephalographic methods and analyzing the event-related potential (ERP). ERP components associated with motor (the BP), cognitive (the pN), and sensory readiness (the vN) were analyzed on 21 participants completing the two DRTs. The results support the involvement of all considered brain areas in temporal cognition but extend this information by indicating that these areas can be engaged during the preparation phase before the stimulus is delivered. Furthermore, the T-DRT requires strong anticipatory activity in the PFC likely serving as a moderator of upcoming motor responses. Finally, visual areas were greatly engaged in the early phase of sensory readiness of the T-DRT probably to create top-down low-level representations of imminent events to facilitate perception.