Why smells from childhood mean so much

 Why smells from childhood mean so much

Why does the hint of certain smells instantly transport you back to childhood? It may be because the first smell you associate with an object is given privileged status in the brain

Yaara Yeshurun and colleagues at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, showed volunteers an object such as a chair or pencil that was unlikely to already be associated with a smell at the same time as exposing them to an odour or sound. An hour-and-a-half later, they showed them the same object with a different odour or sound.

One week later, the researchers showed the volunteers the object again and asked them which odour or sound they associated with it, while scanning their brains using functional¹ magnetic resonance² imaging.

Volunteers were more likely to mention the first odour – and when they did, their brains showed a characteristic pattern of activity in the hippocampus. This pattern did not appear if volunteers plumped for the second odour, or if they had been exposed to sounds rather than smells.

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Yeshurun concludes that the brain reserves a special pattern of activity for memories that represent the first time we have associated a smell with a particular thing – and that such pairings are most likely to be laid down in childhood.

The brain may have evolved to lay down these privileged memories because it enhanced our ability to sense danger. "This is especially true for unpleasant odours," says Yeshurun.

This makes sense, says Rachel Herz, author of The Scent³ of Desire: Discovering our enigmatic sense of smell and visiting professor at Brown University in Providence⁴, Rhode Island. "The evolutionary⁵ implication is that the situation in which you first encounter an odour is likely a reliable maker⁶ for its meaning, and it is highly adaptive to learn that meaning so that the odour can be responded to appropriately in the future."

1 functional   

adj.为实用而设计的，具备功能的，起作用的

参考例句：

• The telephone was out of order,but is functional now.电话刚才坏了，但现在可以用了。
• The furniture is not fancy,just functional.这些家具不是摆着好看的，只是为了实用。

2 resonance   

n.洪亮；共鸣；共振

参考例句：

• Playing the piano sets up resonance in those glass ornaments.一弹钢琴那些玻璃饰物就会产生共振。
• The areas under the two resonance envelopes are unequal.两个共振峰下面的面积是不相等的。

3 scent   

n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉

参考例句：

• The air was filled with the scent of lilac.空气中弥漫着丁香花的芬芳。
• The flowers give off a heady scent at night.这些花晚上散发出醉人的芳香。

4 providence   

n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝

参考例句：

• It is tempting Providence to go in that old boat.乘那艘旧船前往是冒大险。
• To act as you have done is to fly in the face of Providence.照你的所作所为那样去行事，是违背上帝的意志的。

5 evolutionary   

adj.进化的；演化的，演变的；[生]进化论的

参考例句：

• Life has its own evolutionary process.生命有其自身的进化过程。
• These are fascinating questions to be resolved by the evolutionary studies of plants.这些十分吸引人的问题将在研究植物进化过程中得以解决。

6 maker   

n.制造者，制造商

参考例句：

• He is a trouble maker，You must be distant with him.他是个捣蛋鬼，你不要跟他在一起。
• A cabinet maker must be a master craftsman.家具木工必须是技艺高超的手艺人。