How the motor system both encodes and influences our sense of time

- The core timing mechanism resides within the motor system.
- Interval tuning in SMA is a dynamic signal encoding time in different contexts.
- The prediction of sensorimotor events is transmitted from motor to sensory areas.
- Actions lead to highly selective distortions of perceived time.
- Actions distort the subjective timeline before, during and after a movement.

Several lines of evidence suggest that motoric brain structures may form the core amodal component of a neural network supporting a wide range of timed behaviours. Here, we review recent findings which elucidate the neural computations that occur within motor regions, and in particular the supplementary motor area, in order to support precisely timed actions. Although motor activity may help us represent time, it is also clear that action both enriches and complicates the interpretation of sensory inputs. Hence, in the second half of this review, we consider the latest findings regarding the perceptual distortions that our actions can impose upon our subjective perception of time.