The smell of roses strengthens the memory
Not far off session. Left behind the cold. “The reader is waiting for the rhymes of the rose ...” (A. S. Pushkin). What are we talking about? Yes. Session. How many things will have to be taught ... And so the roses will help us. Although it will be difficult to reproduce at home the experiments that German neuroscientists have recently put on. Well, that the German - death, then Russian ...
You know yourself.
It turns out that the scent of roses can significantly affect the ability of the brain to organize the lesson learned and to postpone it in the “compartments” of long-term memory. Just do not rush to pour pink toilet water or make the whole apartment with bouquets - everything is somewhat more complicated. Here is the whole secret - at what moments this very fragrance of roses should be given to the subject. In which? Let's take it in order.
A report on interesting experiences with smells and memory was published in the journal Science by Jan Born, Steffen Gais and Björn Rasch from the University of Lübeck (Universität zu Lübeck), as well as Christian Büchel from University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf).
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Scientists have long known that you need to sleep with memories. At the same time, it is known that odors affect among other things sleep. No wonder that the Japanese in their dream-making machine use an odor sprayer along with other active agents.
In addition, we must remember that memory was already improving with sweet soda, but about the notorious training directly during sleep (according to the method of the character of the film “Big Break”), that is, with the help of a tape recorder - and there is nothing to say. Well? It remains to make a logical step - somehow combine all these ideas.
A small retreat. There is such a site in the brain - the hippocampus. His scientists consider something like a notebook, where short-term memories of what has just happened (say, one day) are recorded. During sleep, the hippocampus “revives” memories and overwrites this information to other parts of the brain, to where all sorts of “broken saucers” and “area of a circle are equal” will lie for years.
And here, in fact, a new experience, which revealed the potential of smells. 18 subjects (men and women) participated in it.
A game to memorize pairs of pictures in certain locations, with a simultaneous background in the form of the smell of roses (photo from uni-luebeck.de).
During the day, they sat in front of the computer: in a certain “game” it was necessary to remember as many pairs of pictures as possible, laid out in certain places. The next day, the wards of the researchers had to reproduce the memorized location. It remained to introduce a small variable, the smell of roses, and see what happens.
At first, this smell was given out to people in the form of a background that is continuously present in the learning process. Then, when the subjects went to bed, the smell was brought back to them again. But not all night in a row. And only in the phase known as slow-wave sleep.
It turned out that with such reinforcement, the subjects remembered the next day 97% of the pictures, and without a pink smell at night, only 86%. The difference is statistically significant. And, note, it worked just such a combination: the pink scent at the time of training is the same background in the slow phase of sleep.
If there was no smell of roses when teaching the subject, then, as experience has shown, this pleasant smell, given to a person during sleep, had no effect on memory. Similarly, the smell of roses, which is present during the training, but without repeating it the next night - also had no meaning for the memory.
And even if the smell of roses took place during the study, but in a dream it was given in the fast phase (the phase of rapid eye movement or the phase of dreams) - also no improvement in the absorption was observed.
The smell of roses did not affect the memorization of the material even if it was given to the subjects after training, but even before sleep - during wakefulness.
Finally, it turned out that it did not make any sense to give the smell of roses continuously all night in a row (although he would then periodically get into the necessary, slow phase of sleep). The fact is that a person gets used to the constant smell and stops noticing it.
But it was easy for the researchers to get into the right phase of sleep, since experimental subjects slept in the laboratory and, accordingly, a brain activity monitor was attached to them.
Interestingly, this rose effect works only with so-called declarative memories, which include pictures and, probably, words. Procedural memories, that is, memories of their own motor actions, are not affected by this effect, say the authors of the work, since the hippocampus is practically not involved in fixing such memories.
Alas, learning to play the piano, moving a vase with roses from the living room to the bedroom will not work.
Activation of the hippocampus during sleep with the presence of rose fragrance, detected using a functional magnetic tomograph. It turned out that the activity of the hippocampus at this moment is even higher than during wakefulness (photo from uni-luebeck.de).
But how does the smell work? The researchers explain that the flavor perceived during learning is associated in memory with the lesson, and at night it activates the hippocampus, causing this association to re-occur. The hippocampus, which, we note, already taken for the reactivation of memories just in a slow sleep, in the presence of a familiar smell works even more vigorously.
By the way, why did the smell of roses not work if it was given out after school, but before sleep? Scientists say that in a dream the hippocampus is more sensitive.
The question arises - is it possible to use other stimuli for a nightly reminder of a lesson — sound, shall we say? It is not excluded that. Here are just “flavors are particularly suitable for such an experience, since, firstly, they evoke memories very effectively, and, secondly, they have almost no interfering effect on sleep itself,” write the German researchers.
Yeah, roses are much nicer than a tape-recorder booming throughout the night. And last year Born discovered that the memory mechanism can be stimulated by a weak current supplied to the brain.
About the same, except for details, other researchers said earlier.
Article Naryl on www.membrana.ru
You know yourself.
It turns out that the scent of roses can significantly affect the ability of the brain to organize the lesson learned and to postpone it in the “compartments” of long-term memory. Just do not rush to pour pink toilet water or make the whole apartment with bouquets - everything is somewhat more complicated. Here is the whole secret - at what moments this very fragrance of roses should be given to the subject. In which? Let's take it in order.
A report on interesting experiences with smells and memory was published in the journal Science by Jan Born, Steffen Gais and Björn Rasch from the University of Lübeck (Universität zu Lübeck), as well as Christian Büchel from University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf).
')
Scientists have long known that you need to sleep with memories. At the same time, it is known that odors affect among other things sleep. No wonder that the Japanese in their dream-making machine use an odor sprayer along with other active agents.
In addition, we must remember that memory was already improving with sweet soda, but about the notorious training directly during sleep (according to the method of the character of the film “Big Break”), that is, with the help of a tape recorder - and there is nothing to say. Well? It remains to make a logical step - somehow combine all these ideas.
A small retreat. There is such a site in the brain - the hippocampus. His scientists consider something like a notebook, where short-term memories of what has just happened (say, one day) are recorded. During sleep, the hippocampus “revives” memories and overwrites this information to other parts of the brain, to where all sorts of “broken saucers” and “area of a circle are equal” will lie for years.
And here, in fact, a new experience, which revealed the potential of smells. 18 subjects (men and women) participated in it.
A game to memorize pairs of pictures in certain locations, with a simultaneous background in the form of the smell of roses (photo from uni-luebeck.de).
During the day, they sat in front of the computer: in a certain “game” it was necessary to remember as many pairs of pictures as possible, laid out in certain places. The next day, the wards of the researchers had to reproduce the memorized location. It remained to introduce a small variable, the smell of roses, and see what happens.
At first, this smell was given out to people in the form of a background that is continuously present in the learning process. Then, when the subjects went to bed, the smell was brought back to them again. But not all night in a row. And only in the phase known as slow-wave sleep.
It turned out that with such reinforcement, the subjects remembered the next day 97% of the pictures, and without a pink smell at night, only 86%. The difference is statistically significant. And, note, it worked just such a combination: the pink scent at the time of training is the same background in the slow phase of sleep.
If there was no smell of roses when teaching the subject, then, as experience has shown, this pleasant smell, given to a person during sleep, had no effect on memory. Similarly, the smell of roses, which is present during the training, but without repeating it the next night - also had no meaning for the memory.
And even if the smell of roses took place during the study, but in a dream it was given in the fast phase (the phase of rapid eye movement or the phase of dreams) - also no improvement in the absorption was observed.
The smell of roses did not affect the memorization of the material even if it was given to the subjects after training, but even before sleep - during wakefulness.
Finally, it turned out that it did not make any sense to give the smell of roses continuously all night in a row (although he would then periodically get into the necessary, slow phase of sleep). The fact is that a person gets used to the constant smell and stops noticing it.
But it was easy for the researchers to get into the right phase of sleep, since experimental subjects slept in the laboratory and, accordingly, a brain activity monitor was attached to them.
Interestingly, this rose effect works only with so-called declarative memories, which include pictures and, probably, words. Procedural memories, that is, memories of their own motor actions, are not affected by this effect, say the authors of the work, since the hippocampus is practically not involved in fixing such memories.
Alas, learning to play the piano, moving a vase with roses from the living room to the bedroom will not work.
Activation of the hippocampus during sleep with the presence of rose fragrance, detected using a functional magnetic tomograph. It turned out that the activity of the hippocampus at this moment is even higher than during wakefulness (photo from uni-luebeck.de).
But how does the smell work? The researchers explain that the flavor perceived during learning is associated in memory with the lesson, and at night it activates the hippocampus, causing this association to re-occur. The hippocampus, which, we note, already taken for the reactivation of memories just in a slow sleep, in the presence of a familiar smell works even more vigorously.
By the way, why did the smell of roses not work if it was given out after school, but before sleep? Scientists say that in a dream the hippocampus is more sensitive.
The question arises - is it possible to use other stimuli for a nightly reminder of a lesson — sound, shall we say? It is not excluded that. Here are just “flavors are particularly suitable for such an experience, since, firstly, they evoke memories very effectively, and, secondly, they have almost no interfering effect on sleep itself,” write the German researchers.
Yeah, roses are much nicer than a tape-recorder booming throughout the night. And last year Born discovered that the memory mechanism can be stimulated by a weak current supplied to the brain.
About the same, except for details, other researchers said earlier.
Article Naryl on www.membrana.ru
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/5424/
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