A neuronal correlate for time interval estimation in the crow’s telencephalon

Melissa Johnston, Maximilian E. Kirschhock and Andreas Nieder ()
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Melissa Johnston: University of Tübingen
Maximilian E. Kirschhock: University of Tübingen
Andreas Nieder: University of Tübingen

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-15

Abstract: Abstract Interval timing, the ability to perceive and estimate durations between events, is essential for many animal behaviors. In mammals, it is linked to specific cortical and sub-cortical brain regions, but its neural basis in birds remains unclear. We trained two male carrion crows on a time estimation task using visual stimuli, cueing them to wait for a minimum duration of 1500 ms, 3000 ms, or 6000 ms before responding to receive a reward. During the task, we recorded activity from single neurons in the nidopallium caudolaterale (NCL), the avian executive telencephalon. Many neurons showed tuning to specific durations, suggesting that time intervals are encoded as abstract magnitudes along an ordered scale. Population-level decoding revealed that NCL activity predicted the crows’ intended wait time, independent of the sensory properties of the cues. These findings show that abstract time estimation can emerge from neural architectures different from the mammalian neocortex.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-63820-5

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