# Timing & Associative Learning

> **NIH NIH R01** · BARNARD COLLEGE · 2021 · $440,850

## Abstract

Project Summary
The ability to time underlies adaptive behavior. Precise motor behavior is carefully timed.
Decisions about whether or not to take an action depend on knowledge of when they are
appropriate. Memories for how long actions usually take underlies most ordinary activity such as
planning a day or knowing how long it takes to cross a street. This learning of time is automatic
and a foundation of behavioral organization. Disordered timing and deficits in the capacity to
anticipate predictable events are associated with a number of psychiatric disorders including
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, schizophrenia and depression. The diminished capacity
to anticipate future consequences also play a role in substance abuse disorders. Distortions in
timing and anticipation are both a symptom of the disorders as well as a source of additional
problems.
The purpose of this research is to understand how times are learned, remembered and used to
guide behavior. We explore the psychological and biological mechanisms that govern both
when we make a response at the right time and those that govern our ability to withhold a
response when it is the wrong time. These processes are studied in animal models that allow us
to observe and alter the functioning of the cortico-striatal-thalamo-cortical brain circuits that
underlie these capacities. In particular, we are interested in how dopamine signaling in these
circuits conveys information about time. For the first time we will study how dopamine signals to
the cortex convey information about whether and when an event will occur. We will also test the
hypothesis that the dopamine also conveys information about the reliability of that information.
Understanding these basic mechanisms will lead to new treatment strategies and targets for a
wide range of psychiatric disorders and human problems.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10065017
- **Project number:** 5R01MH068073-17
- **Recipient organization:** BARNARD COLLEGE
- **Principal Investigator:** Peter D. Balsam
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $440,850
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2003-03-05 → 2024-12-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10065017

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10065017, Timing & Associative Learning (5R01MH068073-17). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10065017. Licensed CC0.

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