News
Jan 04, 2023
A study by Group C01(Ono) has been published in Science Advances.

In this paper, the authors developed a new probe to visualize intracellular cAMP and extracellular peptides and succeeded in cAMP and peptide secretory rhythm imaging in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (central circadian clock). They discovered that the circadian rhythm of cAMP is generated by a neural network mediated by neuropeptides and that cAMP generated by this network regulates the intracellular molecular clock.

May 06, 2022
A study by Group C01 (Tanaka) has been published in Nature Communications.

The cerebellum is thought to be involved in synchronized movements, such as dancing to music or clapping hands, but the underlying neural mechanisms are largely unknown. In this study, the authors trained monkeys to move their eyes in synchrony with alternating visual stimuli that appeared at regular intervals. They found that individual neurons in the cerebellum predicted the timing of each stimulus and modulated their activity for errors of movement timing, revealing part of the mechanism for synchronized movements.

Feb 15, 2021
A study by Group C01(Takei) has been published in Current Biology.

A hallmark of our motor system is the ability to generate motor commands by predicting motor outcomes. In this study, Takei (Group C01) and colleagues demonstrated that temporary cooling of dorsal premotor and parietal cortex distinctly impairs animals' behaviours, paralleling to the impairment of generation of “future" motor commands and estimation of "present" states, respectively.

Feb 4, 2021
A study by Group E01(Ikegaya) has been published in Current Biology.

In this paper, the authors trained rats in a novel behavioral task to show gradually changing reward-seeking actions over multiple minutes for a future reward. They discovered generation of elapsed-time dependent neuronal firing patterns in the hippocampus and the striatum as rats learned the temporal structure of the task.

Nov 5, 2020
A new collaborative study between group A01 and B01 has been published in Cerebral Cortex

A new collaborative study between group A01 and B01 has been published in Cerebral Cortex. The study shows that the Now is represented in the precuneus that occupies the center of the entire cerebral cortex.

Sep 14, 2020
A study by Group C01 (Hayashi) has been published in Journal of Neuroscience

In this new paper, Hayashi (Group C01, CiNet/NICT) and Ivry (UC Berkeley) reported evidence that, by combining a temporal illusion and neuroimaging technique, the subjective experience of time is reflected in the activity of the supramarginal gyrus in the human brain.

May 28, 2020
Received "Excellence Research Award" at the 82nd National Convention of IPSJ

Ms. Eri Kuroda, a first-year student of graduate school at Ochanomizu University, and Dr. Ichiro Kobayashi (Group A01) proposed a new predictive coding deep learning model that can flexibly change the prediction duration as humans do. They won the Excellence Research Award at the 82nd National Convention of IPSJ.

March 06, 2020
A study by Group B01 (Nakai and Nishimoto) has been published in Nature Communications

The authors examined cortical cognitive representations by developing encoding and decoding models of human brain activity evoked using 103 diverse cognitive tasks. They found time-related sub-clusters in the cognitive representational space.

January 10, 2019
A study by Dr. Ikegaya and colleagues has been published in Biological Psychiatry.

The authors found that in human and mice, histamine improves long-term memory test scores by strengthening weakened memory traces. In mice, it could temporarily extend the lifetimes of memories by as much as 25 days longer than normal.

Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas (Research in a proposed research area)
Interdisciplinary Area
Chronogenesis: How the Mind Generates Time
ID
8002
Principal Investigator
Shigeru Kitazawa
Professor, Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences, Osaka University
Term of Project
FY2018 - FY2022
Professor Shigeru Kitazawa
Purpose of the Research Project

We discriminate the present from the past and the future while we live our daily lives. Where does the awareness of time, which we term "mental time", come from? In our previous five-year project, "The Science of Mental Time", we achieved three major goals as follows.


1) We successfully drew a map of mental time over the medial surface of the cerebral cortex.

2) We developed methods for manipulating mental time in lab animals, and initiated clinical applications

3) We clarified the ontogeny and the phylogeny of the episodic-like memory.

To make a further step forward, we "generate" an artificial neural network that achieves mental time functions, and use it as a control to be compared with the brain. Through the comparison, we address four critical question. 1) How does a sense of continuous "temporal flow" emerge? 2) How are rhythmic brain activities related with our awareness of time? 3) How do we "acquire" time through development and evolution? 4) How do we "collapse" our time in neurological and mental diseases?

Content of the Research Project

This project consists of five sub-projects. Sub-project A01, located in the center of the five, "generates" an artificial neural network that outputs the order of two events when it receives multiple sentences sampled from a text corpus. The other four sub-projects, characterized by key words such as "Flow" (B01), "Tick" (C01), "Acquire" (D01), and "Collapse" (E01), address each of the four above-mentioned questions.

Expected Research Achievements and Scientific Significance
1. We develop an artificial neural network that achieve mental time functions,
2. clarify how the map of time emerges,
3. provide answers to questions in our daily life,
4. develop methods for prevention and amelioration of mental time dysfunctions,
5. clarify development and evolution of mental time.
Five achievements are expected from our collaborative and interdisciplinary studies. 1) We will develop artificial neural networks that achieve our mental time functions. 2) We will clarify how the map of time functions and emerges. 3) We will provide solid scientific answers to naive questions like "Why do we feel nostalgic for the past?", and "Why does time fly when we have fun?". 4) We will develop new methods for evaluating and manipulating mental time, and initiate clinical applications for screening and ameliorating the symptoms of diseases with mental time dysfunctions like dementia. 5) We will clarify similarities and differences in the mental time functions between the human and the other species, and between adults and children.
Key Words
Mental time: an awareness of time as being past, present, and future, specifically evolved in humans. Mental time is constructed by the brain and does not therefore necessarily coincide with time in the physical world.
Contact Information
Administration Office
Dynamic Brain Network Laboratory, Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences, Osaka University, 1-3 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka, 565-0871 Japan
Tel: +81-6-6879-4431 / Fax: +81-6-6879-4437
Email: contact