Neurological mechanism for perceiving time?

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the neurological and biological mechanisms by which humans perceive the passage of time. Participants explore various aspects of time perception, including circadian rhythms, ultradian rhythms, and specific examples from biology, while questioning the complexity of the subject and the understanding of these mechanisms.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Conceptual clarification
  • Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • One participant inquires about the continuous dynamical processes in the brain that might relate to time perception and whether these mechanisms are well understood.
  • Another participant references existing literature on circadian rhythms and suggests that there are different mechanisms for short and long time interval perception.
  • Discussion includes the role of melatonin in humans and its relation to biological timekeeping.
  • A participant raises a question about the time interval perception in pill bugs, speculating on whether it is learned behavior or has a genetic basis.
  • Several participants mention David Eagleman's work on time perception, sharing links to his essays and discussing their impressions of his ideas.
  • There are references to a fictional case from the show House MD, discussing the phenomenon of "gaps" in experience and relating it to absence seizures, with some participants sharing their interpretations and reactions.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express a range of views on the mechanisms of time perception, with no clear consensus on the understanding of these processes. Some agree on the complexity of the subject, while others introduce different examples and interpretations, indicating ongoing debate.

Contextual Notes

The discussion highlights the limitations in understanding the neurological mechanisms of time perception, including the dependence on definitions and the complexity of the subject matter. There are unresolved questions regarding the specific biological processes involved.

strangerep
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Hi all,

I'm a first time poster in Biology, and I'm not sure if this question belongs in Biology or Medicine. (I normally hang out over in quantum physics.)

What is currently known about the detailed neurological/biological mechanism by which humans perceive the passage of time? Simple watches are designed such that we perceive the spacing of ticks of each second to be approximately equal. Presumably this is related to some continuous dynamical process in the brain? If so, is this mechanism well understood at present?
 
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Circadian rhythms are found in many different organism such as plants. In fact, plants use light and photoperiods to tell time. When nights get longer/shorter they will flower accordingly. As for humans, melatonin is a hormone secreted by the pineal gland at night and is used to tell time essential to many biological functions.
 
Thanks everyone for the various references. I see that this is a very complex subject, with distinctly different mechanisms for short and long time interval perception.

So much to learn, and only one lifetime... :-(
 
ultradian rhythms - less than a day
circadian rhythms - daily
infradian rhythms - more than a day
 
This time of year, various bugs are out and about. One of them, Armadillidiidae (pill bug/roly-poly/potato bug/..) curls up into a ball if you touch it, then after some amount of time, unrolls and continues on it's way. Does anyone know if someone has done any work to understand how that time interval is set? I can't imagine it's learned behavior, and I have a hard time thinking of a genetic basis.
 
I enjoyed David Eagleman's work.

http://www.eaglemanlab.net/time/essay-brain-time
 
SecularSanity said:
I enjoyed David Eagleman's work.
http://www.eaglemanlab.net/time/essay-brain-time
Interesting essay. Thanks for mentioning it.
 
  • #10
SecularSanity said:
I enjoyed David Eagleman's work.

http://www.eaglemanlab.net/time/essay-brain-time

I enjoyed reading this. I think I saw this guy on Colbert, probably pushing a book, but I also remember seeing video of the people being dropped while watching for the numbers. Or perhaps that's just a perception I have formed based upon sensory data arriving too fast that it got smeared into a memory.

Nope, it happened:
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/392756/july-21-2011/david-eagleman
 
  • #11
A fantastic source :rolleyes:, in an episoide of House MD, there was a case of a patient that had "gaps" in their "experience".

As in, the patient sings a song with rythem, and at times the patient pauses and is unnoticed by the patient.

I would guess it's loosely based off something plausable.

Mini "black outs" or something.
 
  • #12
nitsuj said:
A fantastic source :rolleyes:, in an episoide of House MD, there was a case of a patient that had "gaps" in their "experience".

As in, the patient sings a song with rythem, and at times the patient pauses and is unnoticed by the patient.

I would guess it's loosely based off something plausable.

Mini "black outs" or something.
I didn't happen to catch this episode but what you're describing is Absence Seizures:

http://www.webmd.com/epilepsy/understanding-absence-seizure-basics

From the perspective of the person having the seizure time seems to have inexplicably jumped forward a few seconds: suddenly people are in different positions saying different things, etc, as if some frames had been cut out of a film.
 
  • #13
zoobyshoe said:
I didn't happen to catch this episode but what you're describing is Absence Seizures:

http://www.webmd.com/epilepsy/understanding-absence-seizure-basics

From the perspective of the person having the seizure time seems to have inexplicably jumped forward a few seconds: suddenly people are in different positions saying different things, etc, as if some frames had been cut out of a film.

Chase - "His EEG didn't show any sign of seizure activity."
House - "I didn't say it was a seizure, I said it was like a seizure!"
Oh that House, always so clever :smile:

It was S07E16, the diagnosis is at 28:00 minutes into the episode. One of the better episodes too, check it out.
 
  • #14
nitsuj said:
Chase - "His EEG didn't show any sign of seizure activity."
House - "I didn't say it was a seizure, I said it was like a seizure!"
Oh that House, always so clever :smile:

It was S07E16, the diagnosis is at 28:00 minutes into the episode. One of the better episodes too, check it out.

It looks like I'd have to download it to watch it. I'll eventually catch it on TV. I watch the old episodes when they air.
 

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