A famous passage from Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time describes how the taste of a madeleine dipped in tea evokes memories of his childhood in the protagonist, and became famous precisely because it illustrates Proust’s theory of involuntary memory, where Certain sensory stimuli, such as taste or smell, can trigger deep, detailed memories that conscious memory cannot retrieve. The narrator’s experience with the cupcake becomes a symbol of how memories can be vividly retrieved through sensory experiences.
What if recovering these memories could help patients with depression mitigate depressive symptoms and recover from their illness? Well, this is the conclusion reached by a study conducted by a team of researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and social workers from UPMC, who discovered that smelling a familiar aroma could help people with depression remember specific fragments of your autobiographical memory, which could contribute to your recovery.
Research has revealed that aromas are more effective than words in evoking memories of specific events and could even be used in the medical field to help people with depression break negative thought cycles and restructure thought patterns, facilitating healing. faster and more fluid. The findings have been published in JAMA Network Open.
Smells that help evoke memories in depressed patients
Early in her career, Dr. Kymberly Young, a neuroscience researcher specializing in autobiographical memories, associate professor of psychiatry at Pitt and lead author of the study, understood that activating the amygdala – an area of the reptilian brain that controls “fight” responses or escape” and also directs attention and focus towards important events – promotes the recovery of memories.
Young also knew that people with depression have difficulty remembering specific autobiographical memories and that, in healthy people, scents trigger vivid, “real” memories, probably because they interact directly with the amygdala through nerve connections from the olfactory bulb. “I was surprised that no one had thought of using olfactory cues for memory recall in people with depression before,” Young said. Therefore, she decided to test whether activating the amygdala could help people with depression access their memories more effectively. Instead of using expensive and often inaccessible brain scan tests, he opted for a much simpler approach.
In the study, Young presented participants with a series of opaque glass jars, each with a potent, familiar scent, ranging from oranges to ground coffee to shoe polish and even Vicks VapoRub. After asking participants to smell the bottle, Young asked them to remember a specific memory, regardless of whether it was good or bad.
“If we improve memory, we can improve problem solving, emotional regulation, and other functional problems that people with depression often experience”
Young was surprised to find that memory recall was stronger in individuals with depression who received olfactory cues instead of verbal ones. Those who received olfactory cues were more likely to remember a specific event (for example, a visit to a coffee shop last Friday) rather than general memories (such as having gone to coffee shops before).
Memories triggered by smells were also much more vivid and felt more immersive and real. Additionally, Young noted that she was excited to discover that participants who smelled the jars tended to remember positive events, even though they had not been specifically instructed to remember positive memories.
Young is preparing to begin more technologically advanced studies using a brain scan to show that aromas activate the amygdalae of people with depression more effectively than verbal cues, but in the meantime, she’s excited about the progress. “If we improve memory, we can improve problem solving, emotional regulation and other functional problems that people with depression often experience,” concludes the researcher.
