A Limited Cerebellar Contribution to Suprasecond Timing Across Differing Task Demands

The involvement of the cerebellum in suprasecond interval timing (i.e., timing in the seconds to minutes range) is controversial. A limited amount of evidence from humans, nonhuman primates, and rodents has shown that the lateral cerebellum, including the lateral cerebellar nucleus (LCN), may be necessary for successful suprasecond timing performance. However, many existing studies have pitfalls, such as limited timing outcome measures and confounded task demands. In addition, many existing studies relied on well-trained subjects. This approach may be a drawback, as the cerebellum is hypothesized to carry out ongoing error correction to limit timing variability. By using only experienced subjects, past timing studies may have missed a critical window of cerebellar involvement. In the experiments described here, we pharmacologically inactivated the rat LCN across three different peak interval timing tasks. We structured our tasks to address past confounds, collect timing variability measures, and characterize performance during target duration acquisition. Across these various tasks, we did not find strong support for cerebellar involvement in suprasecond interval timing. Our findings support the existing distinction of the cerebellum as a subsecond interval timing brain region.