Researchers get closer to pinning down the neural basis of time, explaining why time flies and crawls in response to various events.

TIME, THAT FRUSTRATINGLY FINITE RESOURCE AND RULING CONSTRUCT OF OUR LIVES, STILL CONFUSES NEUROSCIENTISTS. What’s especially puzzling is why time can seemingly tick by at a glacial pace when you’re doing something like waiting in line, but hours appear to rush by in minutes during enjoyable activities, like going to a concert.

In other words: Why does time fly when you’re having fun?

In a recent study, researchers became one step closer to answering this perplexing question. By studying people’s brain activity during tasks where time is manipulated, scientists found that there are time-sensitive neurons that fire in response to a specific length of time. These time-oriented neurons are located in the supramarginal gyrus (SMG), part of the right parietal cortex, which is also involved with perceiving space and motion.

When exposed to repeated stimuli lasting the same amount of time, these time-sensitive neurons can get worn out. Meanwhile, other neurons continue to operate normally, creating an imbalance that ultimately, skews the perception of time.

Based on these findings, if someone is shown the same five-second video 50 times, for example, they may have trouble estimating a subsequent clip, even if it is much longer or shorter.

These findings were published Monday in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Masamichi Hayashi is the study’s co-author. He’s a researcher affiliated with the Center for Information and Neural Networks, the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Osaka University, and the University of California, Berkeley. Hayashi has long investigated the neural basis of time.

Hayashi stresses to Inverse that this discovery is “only the first step” towards fully understanding the neural mechanisms of subjective time experiences. Still, he says there are some practical takeaways.

He says one message he can give is, “Don’t trust your sense of time, especially after you were exposed to stimuli with a constant interval that can lead to neural fatigue of time-sensitive neurons in your brain.”[…]

Continue reading: How the brain creates the experience of time — study