Differential Contributions of Anterior Cingulate and Orbito-Frontal Cortex to action timing and its self-monitoring in rats

Abstract

Adaptive behavior requires the ability to monitor the accuracy of self-generated actions, including the production of precise time intervals. Here, we investigated the neural mechanisms underlying temporal error monitoring in rats by combining a time production and error-reporting task with selective pharmacological inactivation of the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). We found that OFC inhibition impaired the production of time intervals in a dose-dependent manner, indicating its critical role in generating temporally precise actions, whereas ACC inhibition left time production intact but caused a systematic overestimation of temporal errors and increased overconfident responses on incorrect trials. Analyses of choice behavior revealed that ACC inactivation disrupted the use of trial history and shifted decision thresholds, suggesting that ACC implements a hierarchical read-out of ongoing temporal performance. These results support a functional dissociation in which OFC provides the temporal signal for action, while ACC evaluates errors and confidence. Our findings establish a causal link between prefrontal circuits and self-monitoring of time, offering a model for hierarchical temporal control and evaluation in the rodent brain.