New Delhi: Scientists studying how sleep affects memory have found that the smell of a familiar scent can help a slumbering brain better remember things that it learned the evening before. The smell of roses — delivered to people’s nostrils as they studied and, later, as they slept — improved their performance on a memory test by about 13 percent.
Researchers have long known that sleep is crucial to laying down new memories. Studies in the 1980s and ’90s showed that exposing the sleeping brain to certain cues—the sound of clicking, for instance — could enhance the process. But it is only in recent years that scientists have begun to understand how this is possible.
“The idea didn’t get any traction with scientists back then, because it didn’t make sense,” Dr Robert Stickgold, associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard was quoted by New York Times. “The new study shows not only that sleep is important for declarative memory, but also allows us to look at exactly when and how this process might happen,” he added.
The brain is thought to process newly acquired facts, figures and locations most efficiently in deep sleep. This restful state usually descends within the first 20 minutes or so after head meets pillow and may last an hour or longer, then recur once or more later in the night.
The study’s results could eventually help doctors improve patients’ memory by devising treatments directed at deep sleep. As they age, people spend less and less time each night in such sleep, and existing sleep medications do not generally increase it. But pharmaceutical companies are investigating compounds that do so.
With excerpts from The New York Times
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