Odor, Memory, and PTSD

     Many victims recollect a traumatic event by odor and even touch. This can cause a ray of emotions and sensations later associated with a smell. To put it in perspective, imagine a family member cooking a dish you love for thanksgiving dinner, and in that dinner, everybody has a great time. Now imagine walking down a street, and a window is open, and you can smell what theyre are cooking, and that smell seems familiar to the dish that you love from thanksgiving dinner. All those great memories you had at thanksgiving dinner come into mind with a warm fuzzy feeling. 

     

    In  "Odor modulates the temporal dynamics of fear memory consolidation," Grella et al. explain that a specific odor can act as a cue to recall memories. And that the olfaction can help to produce maternal bonding, reproduction, and amongst other behaviors. Olfaction gives rise to an explanation of how smell can bring memories. Grella et al. uncovered that odor influence the "temporal relationship, biasing the memory system away from the PFC and toward the HPC, suggesting that retrieval of highly contextual experiences does require the HPC even at the remote time. When recall was tested after 1d,c-Foslevels were equally elevated in dCA1 and noh odor and no-odor groups. However, when we looked at recap these levels, theselevels declined in the no-odor group but not in the odor animals." Suggesting that order does affect memory. 

In "Sniffing out danger: Fearful memories can trigger heightened sense of smell," it supports Grella's explanation that "in the mice, the system  has been discovered that this fear reaction can occur at the sensory level." McGann also explained that they uncovered that mice obtained a shock with a particular odor demonstrated enhanced the smell four times stronger than it was. 

This line of work is essential to help understand PTSD. PTSD can be a debilitating disorder, and victims deserve to regain normalcy in their lives.

  References:

  Grella SL;Fortin AH;McKissick O;Leblanc H;Ramirez S; (n.d.). Odor modulates the temporal dynamics of fear memory consolidation. Learning & memory (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.). Retrieved December 15, 2021, from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32179657/

Rutgers University. (2013, December 12). Sniffing out danger: Fearful memories can trigger heightened sense of smell. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 14, 2021 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/12/131212142215.htm