How does the brain actually process time?

Question

Not necessarily in the sense of memories and past experiences, but instead more in the vein of how my brain would know/estimate that it’s been roughly a minute, or an hour?

In: 8

Answer 1

The answer is fairly simple, even if the details aren’t:

We have a clock in our brain. Or several.

https://nigms.nih.gov/education/fact-sheets/Pages/circadian-rhythms.aspx

There are additional factors, mostly to do with being able to process our surroundings and memory that affect how well we can judge the exact outside passage of time.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/your-brain-has-two-clocks/