研究表明，氣味會改變大腦對記憶的處理方式

研究表明，氣味會改變大腦對記憶的處理方式

Have you ever gotten a whiff of a certain smell that brought you back to childhood? Or maybe a scent that reminded you of a past love affair?

你有沒有聞到一股讓你回到童年的味道?或者是讓你想起過去的戀情的味道?

A paper published in Learning and Memory reveals the power scents have to trigger memories of past experiences, as well as the possibility for odor to be used in treating memory-related disorders.

一篇發(fā)表在《學習與記憶》雜志上的論文，揭示了氣味能夠觸發(fā)對過去經(jīng)歷的記憶，以及氣味被用于治療與記憶相關(guān)的疾病的可能性。

“If odor could be used to elicit the rich recollection of a memory — even of a traumatic experience — we could take advantage of that [therapeutically],” said Boston University neuroscientist Steve Ramirez, assistant professor of psychology and brain sciences and senior author of the study, in a statement.

波士頓大學神經(jīng)學家、心理學和腦科學助理教授、該研究的資深作者斯蒂夫·拉米雷斯在一份聲明中說：“如果氣味可以用來喚起人們對記憶的豐富回憶，甚至是對創(chuàng)傷經(jīng)歷的回憶，我們可以(從治療學角度)利用這一點。”。

The traditional belief about how we retain memories goes like this: Systems consolidation theory suggests that our memories start out being processed by a small part of the brain called the hippocampus, which gives them rich details. Over time, the set of brain cells that holds onto a particular memory reactivates and reorganizes. The memory is later processed by the prefrontal cortex and details sometimes get lost.

關(guān)于我們?nèi)绾伪Ａ粲洃浀膫鹘y(tǒng)觀點是這樣的：系統(tǒng)整合理論認為，我們的記憶最初是由一個叫做海馬體的大腦小部分處理的，海馬體給了我們豐富的細節(jié)。隨著時間的推移，固定在特定記憶上的一組腦細胞會重新激活和重組。記憶隨后被前額葉皮層處理，有時細節(jié)會丟失。

In order to answer the question about why scents, which are processed in the hippocampus, can trigger seemingly dormant memories, the academic researchers at Boston University’s Center for Systems Neuroscience created fear memories in mice by giving them a series of harmless but startling electric shocks inside a container.

波士頓大學系統(tǒng)神經(jīng)科學中心的學術(shù)研究人員，為了找到為什么在海馬體中處理的氣味會觸發(fā)看似休眠的記憶的問題，在一個容器中給老鼠一系列無害但令人吃驚的電擊，從而在老鼠身上產(chǎn)生了恐懼記憶。

Half of the mice were exposed to the scent of almond extract during the shocks, while the other half were not exposed to any scent.

一半的老鼠在電擊期間暴露在杏仁提取物的氣味中，而另一半沒有暴露在任何氣味中。

Twenty days later, researchers found that in the no-odor group, processing of the fear memory moved to the prefrontal cortex. However, the odor group still had significant brain activity in the hippocampus.

20天后，研究人員發(fā)現(xiàn)在無氣味組中，恐懼記憶的處理轉(zhuǎn)移到前額葉皮層。然而，氣味組在海馬區(qū)仍然有顯著的大腦活動。

“[This finding suggests] that we can bias the hippocampus to come back online at a timepoint when we wouldn’t expect it to be online anymore because the memory is too old,” Ramirez says. “Odor can act as a cue to reinvigorate or reenergize that memory with detail.”

拉米雷斯說:“(這一發(fā)現(xiàn)表明)當我們的記憶老到不足以再被記起時，我們可以讓海馬體在某個時間點恢復(fù)正常。”“氣味可以作為一種線索，通過細節(jié)來激活或恢復(fù)記憶。”