How are smells able to elicit such strong and old memories?

[Phillycat]

How does it work, biologically?

I was on the street today and a woman passed me, trailing the scent of the perfume worn by my first-grade teacher, Mrs Rasbridge. That's a 30-year old memory. I remember almost nothing of my early childhood, but only smells can take me back there so completely.

Have you ever had a smell elicit an old memory?

[billyskank]

1. Dunno, but it's a fact.

:hi:

[Phillycat]

2. I would really like to know how that works.

Hey Billy! :hi:

[ruiner4u]

6. Since ya asked nicely...:)

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro00/web2/Ito.html

[Xipe Totec]

3. The most primitive part of the brain

contains the olifactory sense. It predates vision, hearing, and touch. It is connected, not to the thinking part of the brain, but to the emotional part.

[kay1864]

11. Ding ding ding! We have a winner!

It's the "lizard brain", the oldest part of your brain. Smell was critical for sensing danger (as you mention, predating vision and hearing). Hence it's the sense that gets the quickest response.

[unpossibles]

4. based on what I read

it's because of a very close connection from the nose to the hippocampus and limbic sections of the brain via the olfactory nerve.

[Shakespeare]

5. Because the olfactory area (glands?) are directly adjacent to the part of the brain...

...that stores memories. It's an evolutionary trait (learn to associate which smells are good or bad, etc.).

[YankeyMCC]

7. Happens to me very often

in fact I'm not someone who has a very good long term memory of much of my childhood. Anything before say 5th grade is almost like remembering a dream, and even that's a stretch.

Except when a memory is triggered by smells. I was in a cafeteria in the AMC Highland Center a couple weeks ago and somehow the combination of cooking smells and perhaps something else, floor cleaner or something, struck me. I suddenly was sitting at the old kitchen table of our apartment in Somerville, MA when I was 3 or 4 years old.

That is only one story. I think one reason I still enjoy the outdoors is all the olfactory associations with later childhood and early teenage years when I did a lot of camping. Smell is definitely the strongest trigger of memory for me.

[kwassa]

8. Patchouli oil

takes me back to the late '60s.

sometimes incense smells.

and then there is this stuff called marijuana.

[Connonym]

9. all the time!

it's amazing isn't it? A recent one that really freaked me out was I had taken my daughter to a Girl Scout meeting at the local catholic school. I hadn't stepped into a catholic school since I was about 12. Different school,different city, different state, same fucking smell. Astounding. My kids' public school doesn't smell that way. I'm still trying to put my finger on what the difference is. It was weird.

[Phillycat]

10. That's the smell of Jesus.

:D

[InternalDialogue]

12. Yes, they say God is in everything.

That's what they must mean.

[kay1864]

13. Or maybe the Jenis!

Ew.

Hey, "God is everywhere"...the Jenis gets around, knowwhatImean? :P

[KurtNYC]

14. the average human can identify over 20,000 smells but only about 50 colors

most of what we consider "taste" actually happens in the nose (which explain why you can't taste when you have a head cold). Our sense of smell is much better and more acurrate than we generally think it is.

IMHO, Smells are strongly associated with certain memories because smells are so unique.

[underpants]

15. Petuli oil

Some hippie take forEVER to die

Just kidding of course....