Inside Duke Medicine
Researchers open door to scent-memory link
posted October 20th, 2008
Ever smell a whiff of pumpkin pie and find yourself transported back to your grandmother’s house on Christmas day? Or catch a whiff of perfume and suddenly wonder about an old girlfriend?
Duke researchers have taken the first steps to explaining that phenomenon and the complex connection between scent and memory formation.
Stephen Shea, Ph.D., and Richard Mooney, Ph.D., of the Department of Neuroscience recently found that by pairing an odor with the release of noradrenaline, a hormone released during particularly emotional events in sedated rats, they could mimic this memory-scent effect. Once the rats were awake, the researchers observed changes in their behavior, implying that a memory had been formed.
“This work may have implications for furthering our understanding of how long-lasting memories are formed that are important to social bonding,” says Mooney, co-author and associate professor of neurobiology. The paper is published in The Journal of Neuroscience.