To assess the role of dorsolateral striatum (DLS) in time coding, we recorded neuronal activity in rats tasked with comparing the durations of two sequential vibrations. Bayesian decoding of population activity revealed a representation of the unfolding of the trial across time. However, further analyses demonstrated a distinction between the encoding of trial time and perceived time. First, DLS did not show a privileged representation of the stimulus durations compared with other time spans. Second, higher intensity vibrations were perceived as longer; however, time decoded from DLS was unaffected by vibration intensity. Third, DLS did not encode stimulus duration differently on correct versus incorrect trials. Finally, in rats trained to compare the intensities of two sequential vibrations, stimulus duration was encoded even though it was a perceptually irrelevant feature. These findings lead us to posit that temporal information is inherent to DLS activity irrespective of the rat’s ongoing percept.

为了评估背外侧纹状体 (DLS) 在时间编码中的作用，我们记录了大鼠的神经元活动，其任务是比较两个连续振动的持续时间。人口活动的贝叶斯解码揭示了试验随时间展开的表征。然而，进一步的分析证明了试验时间和感知时间的编码之间存在区别。首先，与其他时间跨度相比，DLS 没有显示刺激持续时间的特权表示。其次，更高强度的振动被认为时间更长；然而，从 DLS 解码的时间不受振动强度的影响。第三，DLS 对正确与错误试验的刺激持续时间没有不同的编码。最后，在受过比较两种连续振动强度训练的大鼠中，刺激持续时间被编码，即使它是一个感知上无关的特征。这些发现使我们假设时间信息是 DLS 活动所固有的，与大鼠的持续感知无关。