In life, why can scent trigger strong memories in humans?

Our brains are very strange, and our sense of smell is very sensitive and more closely related to memory than human senses of taste, touch, hearing, and sight. Science has shown that humans can recognize hundreds of millions of different odor receptors that are transmitted to neurons through the air, smell the smell of flowers and grass, naturally imagine being in a lush garden, smell a particular perfume, naturally recall a special memory, smell a special dish, and think of the people and environment with whom they dined at that time. For different people, each scent has a specific symbolic memory.

The smell is transmitted in the nasal cavity, within the forehead.

When a special odor appears, its odor molecules move into the nasal cavity and attach to the cilia of the nose, gradually dissolving in the nasal mucosa inside the nasal cavity, and the 1,200 tentacles around the nasal cilia send nerve signals, and then along the nerve fibers.

Transmitted to the frontal lobes of the brain.

The stronger the smell, the stronger the nerve signals, the more profound the impression in the mind, and incidentally evokes familiar memories that are long gone. That's why someone smelling a familiar scent reminds them of an experience.

The principle of smell eliciting recall.

In our brain, the frontal lobe of the brain is associated with the hippocampus.

Adjacent to the nasal cavity and the limbic system of the brain, the limbic system of the brain is mainly responsible for the ability to perceive emotions and behaviors. The olfactory bulb in the forehead processes nerve signals and transmits them to the limbic system.

In the middle, memories of smells are stored in the hippocampus. The human sense of smell probably peaks in childhood, so many people will look for memories of childhood, the taste of childhood, in adulthood.

About the first and second olfactory memories.

When a person smells a specific smell for the first time, the nerve signals will immediately be transmitted to the limbic system and the hippocampus, and the hippocampus will associate the person, environment, place, and condition of the person who smelled the smell at that time, and when the same smell is smelled again, the memories of that time will rush back.

Because smell is not just smell, it can be the smell of a person, and when you smell it, you may think of someone.

Because there are many memory areas in the brain, and smell also belongs to a certain point in memory, it can trigger human memory, for example, when humans smell foul, they may think of durian stinky tofu.

Because smell can enhance human emotional memory, for example, smelling the match or the scent of a flower can remind you of certain things, or like the smell of food, which can trigger people's hunger.

In short, the areas of the brain that process smells, memories, and emotions are intertwined. In fact, the way your sense of smell is connected to your brain is unique in your senses.

Why is it that when you smell a certain floral, a particular brand of perfume, or the smell of a burning firewood in the distance, a flood of memories and emotions flood over you, as if you have experienced a trip back in time?

Our brains are strange in that smell is more closely related to memory than sight, hearing, taste, and touch. Humans have about 400 types of odor receptors and can recognize trillions of different odors. Although scientists have yet to unravel the details of the neural response to various odors, there is evidence that scents have a huge impact on the brain's ability to recall the past.

From molecules to mucous membranes

When your nose inhales molecules in the air through your breath and smells certain odors. These molecules roam your olfactory system, first attaching to the nasal cilia in your nasal cavity and then dissolving in a layer of mucous membranes. At this time, the 12 million receptors attached to the nasal cilia generate nerve impulses.

Nasal cilia are 1-10 microns in length and less than 1 micron in width.

Nerve signals travel along thousands of nerve fibers all the way to the olfactory bulb, located in the frontal lobe of the brain, where they are processed. At the same time, the process of detecting odors evokes memories in deep areas of the brain.

Attachment of the hippocampus.

When neural signals are processed, the information continues to be transmitted to other parts of the brain near the olfactory bulb, especially the limbic system, which is responsible for controlling the most primitive parts of the brain, including memory, emotion, and behavior.

The hippocampus, shaped like a hippocampus, is an integral part of the limbic system. In fact, the hippocampus is located right next to the olfactory bulb and is mainly responsible for functions such as memory storage, conversion, and orientation.

When you first smell and process an odor, the brain sends messages to the hippocampus and other components of the limbic system to associate the smell with a person, object, place, or event. Therefore, when you smell the same smell a second time, it evokes the memory of your first time.

As far as olfactory memory is concerned, the peak of memory formation is around the age of five. This explains why scent triggers childhood memories for many people.

A deeper feeling.

The reason olfactory is different from the other four senses is that it bypasses the thalamus between the cerebral cortex and the midbrain and enters the brain in a more direct way. The information collected by sight and hearing must pass through the thalamus. As a result, sight and hearing have less impact on the brain than smell.

Odor transmission is directly processed by the olfactory bulb without involving other structural involvement, which not only explains why odors trigger such strong memories, but also seems to explain why smells are difficult to describe in words.

Age of incense beads placed in the pen case.

Studies have shown that people can only identify less than half of the odors produced by objects, even if they are exposed to or experienced on a daily basis. Unless, of course, there is a hint of text or **.

Those life experiences that are connected to smells, the people they have seen, the things they have experienced, the places they have been, and the deeper feelings, situations and memories are placed in the depths of them. These subtle connections are even more complex than the language itself.

I think it's because people have a memory function for smells that they can awaken human memory.

Because the real cerebral cortex has a sense of taste, that's why it's like this.

Because the human brain has such a function, the cerebral cortex will remember it.

The human cerebral cortex has memory, so it can remember.

For such a thing, the human brain has a certain memory.

Some. Human memories can be stored for a long time, and some of them have formed certain imprints in the brain, which may not be forgotten for a lifetime. Why do we have a nostalgic attachment to the snacks we ate when we were children or the meals our mothers cooked?

It is that memories have been formed, which are forever fixed in our brains ...

Of course there will be, of course there will be!