







You may have noticed that the smell of grass and rubber band can bring back the details of a childhood football game more than watching a home movie for a game. You find that the connection of smells to memory and emotions is stronger than other senses. Neurology may know why

The mechanism of the sense of smell

When you see, hear, touch, or taste something, these sensory signals first go to the brain-dwelling thalamus, which acts as a rotation station, being sent and received to and from other stations. Initially, the mammal region receives signals, then sends them to the brain-treated area, including the hippocampus, which is responsible for memory storage and amygdala, which controls emotions

But it is different for smells, they go beyond the area of ​​the mulch to the center of the smell directly, which is known as the (olfactory bulb). The olfactory bulb connects directly to the lobe and hippocampus, which may explain why a memory may be recalled in detail or excite a strong emotion when smelling an odor

but why?

We are beings with the grace of sight, but the sense of smell has the upper hand in our brains. Some believe that it is due to the mechanism of evolution. The name is a primitive sense that has roots in single-cell organisms that interact chemically with their surroundings. This sensor has the longest evolutionary history compared to the rest of the senses. This may also explain why we have at least 1000 different types of olfactory receptors, only two light receptors, and four tactile sensors

Factory memories

In November of 2017, scientists discovered something about the process that connects smell and living memories; they found that memories can be stored in part of the olfactory bulb itself! This complex part is called the piriform cortex.

In a study published in the German journal Ruhr University Bochum, neuroscientists Christina Strauch and Denise Manahan-Vaughan used electrical signals to try to create links to new memories in brains The mice, having presented a previous research that this type of signal can make long-term memories in the Hossin area headquarters of memory, and the team wanted to see if they could do the same thing at the center of smell in the crust pumice. They were not lucky in this experience - at least initially

The pores are connected to various places in the brain, including upper control centers such as the orbitofrontal cortex, which is the part responsible for making judgments about sensory inputs such as: a good jacket touched again, or the smell of Chinese food that you brought a week ago foul , Do not eat it. The researchers tried to use the same signals to stimulate this region, and no doubt that this action led to changes in memory in the crust of pears

Christina Struch said in a press statemen

"Our study showed that the pores are already capable of serving as a long-term memory archive, but they need guidance from the frontal cortex-a high brain control area-indicating that this event will be stored in long-term memory."

If your olfactory center is not only related to the memory center of your brain, it also stores and maintains long-term memories.

Now go ahead and take a deep, long breath from an old perfume bottle or a paperback to one of those abandoned books in the library. Those memories that come to you are a side-view that indicates that your brain works in a good and promising way