# The Neural Mechanism of Interval Timing in Drosophila

> **NIH NIH F32** · STANFORD UNIVERSITY · 2021 · $73,562

## Abstract

Project Summary
 There is no dedicated sensory organ for time, and yet our brains are able to use time to anticipate the
environment and adapt. The process of interval timing on a seconds to minutes scale is evolutionarily
widespread and is central to critical cognitive tasks and behaviors, including how to optimally find food. Despite
the importance of this ability, there is no known neural mechanism for interval timing on this scale in any
organism. Questions about the neural mechanism of interval timing remain, in part, because a majority of
studies record neural activity from only one or a small subset of brain regions. Therefore, to determine the
neural mechanism of interval timing requires whole brain imaging and neuronal activity manipulations to
identify each neuron in the circuit and their roles. These techniques are extremely difficult in the large
vertebrate brain. In contrast, Drosophila are the ideal organism to advance the interval timing field as their
compact brains and easy genetic manipulability allow whole brain imaging and precise neuronal perturbations
as well as behavioral analysis. This proposal aims to use Drosophila and cutting-edge technologies to achieve
the goal of determining the neural mechanism of interval timing from the estimation of time to behavioral
output. The central hypothesis for this project is that a coordinated network distributed throughout the brain
estimates time and that estimate can be used to guide behavior. The first aim tests the hypothesis that interval
timing in Drosophila is encoded using dynamic firing rate changes of a network of neurons throughout the
brain. The second aim tests the hypothesis that Drosophila use interval timing to estimate food density and this
information is integrated with other cues to alter behavior. These aims will be completed using behavioral
assays, whole-brain neuronal activity imaging, and genetic techniques. The information obtained in this project
will provide the first demonstration and mechanistic understanding of a distributed timing circuit in any animal.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10207377
- **Project number:** 5F32MH120865-03
- **Recipient organization:** STANFORD UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Ashley Danielle Smart
- **Activity code:** F32 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $73,562
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-08-01 → 2022-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10207377

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10207377, The Neural Mechanism of Interval Timing in Drosophila (5F32MH120865-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10207377. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*