Faculty Research Talk: The Brain Is a Time Machine

All thought and behavior is organized in time. Everything we do—from picking up a glass of water to the daily rhythms of eating and sleeping—relies on timed signals from the body and brain that convey information about the right time to do it. The mechanisms of our brains allow us to organize the temporal structure of our actions and physiology on scales ranging from milliseconds to days. Like the air we breathe, we are not often aware of time, but it is the infrastructure for all our everyday functions. When these mechanisms become disordered or fail to offer temporal information to guide our behavior, it can contribute to the symptoms of psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, mood disorders, and substance abuse. Professor Balsam’s recent work focuses on how anticipation underlies motivated action, research that can be harnessed to suggest new treatment strategies.