Despite the ubiquity of time in our daily lives and activities, our understanding of the neural mechanisms enabling us to measure time duration is very limited. We measured the electrical field produced by the brain as individuals performed a task in which they judged the duration of a visual or tactile event. Was the event short? Or did it seem long? We found a neural signature that reflects the elapsed time perceived by our participants as they made their temporal decisions (Ofir and Landau, 2022, Curr Bio). In addition, we fit the neurophysiological data with a computational model that we developed and related temporal estimation both to sensory aspects as well as motor aspects (Ofir and Landau, 2025, J Neuro). This finding provides a breakthrough in our ability to track the neural dynamics of interval timing, and gives insight into the cognitive processes and computations that make up our daily experience time. The initial computational framework devised in the initial publications from the action have also been expanded and further developed in order to account for different temporal tasks (Ofir and Landau, favorably reviewed, revised and resubmitted) . TIMECODE also investigates which aspects of motor production - from force exertion to complex movements - play an integral role in timing. For this, we have constructed a novel experimental platform that permits users to engage in full body interactions using a free-flowing range of movements and found an oscillatory signature of the duration of stored intervals in working memory (Guarnieri and Landau, near submission). In addition to the main studies on explicit time perception, TIMECODE also aims to discern links and distinctions between explicit time perception and implicit timing. In order to advance this aim we have run studies and devices cognitive computational models of temporal anticipation (Vishne et al., 2025 BioRxiv) as well as looked at monitored continuous measures of motor behavior in paradigms that incorporate implicit temporal regularities (Tzionit et al. near submission). In addition, we are also investigating ways in which implicit timing impacts performance on sustained tasks which will help understand whether processing of temporal intervals is a reflexive process or whether implicit timing is, indeed, a separate capacity compared to time perception (Shlesinger et al., submitted). To better understand the computational aspects of interval timing we had also investigated neural responses in a task where two different intervals need to be tracked, simultaneously (Haim et al., 2025, J Neuro). Finally, during the last academic year we were finally able to advance studies from work package 2 in which we investigate brain wide connectivity supporting temporal cognition in patients with Parkinson's Disease who have electrodes implanted in their basal ganglia.
