Relationship between CNV and timing of an upcoming event

This study reports an analysis of the Contingent Negative Variation (CNV) recorded on the human scalp during the comparison of a test duration with a previously memorized duration. Results show that CNV activity peaks at the end of the memorized duration, and that its slope varies inversely with the length of this duration. These features of CNV activity are similar to those of climbing neuronal activity observed through intracerebral recordings in animals, and suggest that both activities reflect how the brain encodes the timing of an upcoming event. These results also show that the time-course of the CNV in timing tasks is compatible with a pacemaker-accumulator model of temporal processing.