Beloved,
I wish above all things that thou mayest..be in health,3 John 1:2
"Taking a whiff of rose scent while learning a task and then being exposed to the same smell during sleep helps memories to set, researchers have found.
Researchers think that a part of the brain called the hippocampus is like the scratch-pad of memory, where we put new things that have been experienced or learned until they can be filed for long-term storage.
During sleep, these memories are 'reactivated' and transferred to the cortex.
Odors are known to have a potent effect on the hippocampus. Born and his team speculated that an odor could thus help to trigger the 'reactivation' process during sleep, making permanent memory storage more efficient. Their tests support this theory. "By experimentally inducing it, we can show that reactivation enhances memory," says Born.
But simply sleeping in a rose-scented room won't necessarily do the trick, because the timing of odor exposure is crucial.
Volunteers in the study had to be exposed during so-called slow-wave sleep, when the hippocampus is triggered into replaying memories. Passing roses under the nose during lighter, REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, when most dreams occur, had no effect on memory.
The smell trick is useful only for certain types of learning. It won't be useful for remembering the skills needed for playing the piano
But the finding might provide a friendlier way to improve memory than other suggested techniques, says Born.
Born's group published a study in Nature last year that showed an increase in memory when people's brains were stimulated with a mild electric current. "Everyone's afraid of shocking the brain," he says. "Odor presentation is a much 'softer' method."
Nature
