Neuroscience, Neurodisability and Neurological Disorders Theme Seminar, 28th May 2025

The next Neuroscience, Neurodisability and Neurological Disorders Theme Seminar is taking place on 28th May 2025, 12-1pm in the Colin Ingram Seminar Room, Henry Wellcome Building, Newcastle University.  Steven Errington will be presenting.

Presentation title:  Neural mechanisms of implicit temporal learning in the primate brain

Abstract: Although our world is dynamic and ever-changing, our sensory environment is structured - events occur in sequences and at intervals that make them, to some degree, predictable. This temporal structure allows the brain to extract regularities and anticipate future events, facilitating efficient perception and action. In this talk, I will present a series of studies from my PhD and postdoctoral work that explore how the brain uses temporal information to guide behaviour. In the first part of my talk, I will discuss findings from medial frontal cortex that reveal how different populations of neurons can support proactive inhibitory control. These neurons signalled conflicting action plans, the timing of salient and surprising events, and sustained representations of task goals – processes which are important in anticipating when action inhibition might be required. In the second part, I will then present preliminary data from the basal forebrain showing that a population of neurons have properties that position them as potential timekeepers that can accurately encode the timing of outcomes in uncertain environments. Finally, I will describe recent work investigating how auditory and frontal cortices contribute to implicit sequence learning. Our preliminary results reveal distinct processing between these regions: neurons in auditory cortex encoded individual sequence elements with stimulus-locked, periodic activity patterns, suggesting a role in tracking their immediate, low-level properties. In contrast, initial evidence suggests frontal cortex neurons may track sequence information over longer timescales, allowing for the extraction of higher-order relationships. Together, these findings highlight how multiple brain systems contribute to learning and anticipating when events are likely to occur - supporting adaptive behaviour in a temporally structured world. Future work will build on these findings to test more direct hypotheses about the mechanisms and conditions that enable implicit temporal learning at the systems level.

Short Bio: Steven is a Research Associate in Neural Circuits, working with Yuki Kikuchi in the Biosciences Institute at Newcastle University. He achieved a BSc (Hons) in Psychology from Northumbria, a MRes in Neuroscience from Newcastle University, and a PhD in Neuroscience from Vanderbilt University working with Jeff Schall.  After attaining his PhD in 2022, he did a year of postdoctoral training in Washington University in St Louis working with Ilya Monosov, before returning to Newcastle in 2024. His research combines behavioral studies in non-human primates with single-unit recordings, high-channel laminar electrophysiology across multiple regions, and optogenetic manipulations, to understand how a range of cognitive processes occur at the microcircuit level.

Although our world is dynamic and ever-changing, our sensory environment is structured - events occur in sequences and at intervals that make them, to some degree, predictable. This temporal structure allows the brain to extract regularities and anticipate future events, facilitating efficient perception and action. In this talk, I will present a series of studies from my PhD and postdoctoral work that explore how the brain uses temporal information to guide behaviour. In the first part of my talk, I will discuss findings from medial frontal cortex that reveal how different populations of neurons can support proactive inhibitory control. These neurons signalled conflicting action plans, the timing of salient and surprising events, and sustained representations of task goals – processes which are important in anticipating when action inhibition might be required. In the second part, I will then present preliminary data from the basal forebrain showing that a population of neurons have properties that position them as potential timekeepers that can accurately encode the timing of outcomes in uncertain environments. Finally, I will describe recent work investigating how auditory and frontal cortices contribute to implicit sequence learning. Our preliminary results reveal distinct processing between these regions: neurons in auditory cortex encoded individual sequence elements with stimulus-locked, periodic activity patterns, suggesting a role in tracking their immediate, low-level properties. In contrast, initial evidence suggests frontal cortex neurons may track sequence information over longer timescales, allowing for the extraction of higher-order relationships. Together, these findings highlight how multiple brain systems contribute to learning and anticipating when events are likely to occur - supporting adaptive behaviour in a temporally structured world. Future work will build on these findings to test more direct hypotheses about the mechanisms and conditions that enable implicit temporal learning at the systems level.