Think with your nose!

 Think with your nose!

The term memory can be defined as something remembered from the past, a recollection of sorts. However, we have come to know that memory is more than just a collection of the past. Sure, that is a part of it, but numerous studies and experiments throughout the fields of neuroscience and psychology has taught us that there are many variants of memory. We can begin with three basic levels of memory: sensory memory, short-term (working) memory, and long-term memory. When we think about the word memory, most often people immediately refer to long-term memory, which was defined earlier as collection of the past. What do these collections entail? Our brain is an amazing work of biological machinery with the ability to sort these memories and code them into different groups, or types of memories. It is not often that we randomly think about our past memories, yet there is always something to trigger a set of memories which allows us to remember our past experiences. 

In the article “Scents and Reminiscence: Olfactory Influences on Memory Consolidation in the Sleeping Human Brain”, researchers Shanahan and Gottfried analyze how certain memory can be consolidated through the use of olfactory cues. Now most of us would think that we tend to recall something after seeing a picture we can recognize of hearing a familiar voice, but most of us wouldn’t think right away that memories can be triggered via olfactory stimulation. Their research focused on how smells could improve memory. The researchers asked participants to complete a set of tasks. The experiment group was given certain odors while completing the task and while they would sleep. The research showed that showed that when participants completed tasks with a certain odor and were then presented with the same odor during their sleep, they demonstrated better performances overall when compared to the control group which didn’t receive the olfactory stimulation during their sleep. These results indicate that olfactory stimulation can play a role in improving memory consolidation, a theory that has been previously studied and agreed upon. 

Not only do olfactory cues help with memory consolidation in humans, it can also help improve working memory in other species as well. A research study conducted by Ka Ho and Roberts showed that certain odors improved the episodic memory of dogs. Episodic memory is the long-term memory for remembering events and experiences. When the dogs were tested with odor stimuli, they were able to show an improvement in memory in terms of what, when, and where they remembered certain things. Although it was difficult to address whether or not they showed improvement in the what, where, and why separately, it showed there was improvement in their memory regardless of whether they were grouped together or not. 

It is fascinating to see how far research and experiment has taken us to see what the brain is capable of and how much the brain is capable of doing. We still have yet to see understand the entirety of the brain, but what we have learned so far is quite exemplary. There are so many neuronal connections that we wouldn’t expect to make ourselves. For example, in this case, the temporal lobe contains the olfactory cortex and the hippocampus (responsible for memory), both of which can be related as we have discussed in this article. Not only can we see these associations in humans, but many other animals as well. It is interesting to see how unique the human brain is, but also very much similar to the brains of other species. More importantly, it will be exciting to discover more about the brain in future studies.  

Works Cited

Lo, Ka Ho, and William A. Roberts. “Dogs (Canis Familiaris) Use Odor Cues to Show Episodic-like Memory for What, Where, and When.” Journal of Comparative Psychology, vol. 133, no. 4, Nov. 2019, pp. 428–441., doi:10.1037/com0000174. 

Shanahan, Laura K., and Jay A. Gottfried. “Scents and Reminiscence: Olfactory Influences on Memory Consolidation in the Sleeping Human Brain.” Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory Consolidation, 2017, pp. 335–346., doi:10.1007/978-3-319-45066-7_20.