Scientists take a look at why 'time fly's when you're having fun'

It's no secret to anyone, time does seem to fly when you're having fun. 

But why do the enjoyable parts of our lives seem to be over in a heartbeat?

A team of neuroscientists from Portugal say that their findings are the first to pinpoint a neural circuitry that is responsible for the lack of judgement when it comes to time.

The Mice.

For the first few months of the experiment, the scientists trained the rodents to identify the amount of time that has passed between sounds.

The principle investigator, Joe Paton said, "We trained mice to estimate whether the duration of an interval between two tones was shorter or longer than 1.5 seconds." to decide which silence was longer, the mice responded by putting their snouts in either a left or right port.

Then, by using a process called 'fiber photometry, the researchers were able to identify the levels of dopamine neurones in the part of the brain responsible for processing how time is passed.

"We found that if we stimulated the neurones, the mice tended to underestimate duration, and if we silenced them, they tended to overestimate it." Paton stated.

This can be compared to when you're stuck in traffic, trying to get home as quickly as possible, you don't have those dopamine levels in your brain, so the traffic feels like an eternity.

Even though the scientists say a similar circuit is active in the human brain, they won't know for sure as the animals can't tell the researchers what they felt during the experiments.

At the end of the day, it is all completely subjective, and even if they can prove that it is a thing, unless you actually enjoy I spy, the traffic home from work is going to take an eternity.