Irvine, California

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Humans have long been drawn to scents and fragrances, so much so that the scent industry has now gone beyond just the perfumes. You have various types of diffusers, essential oils, candles, incense and a lot more. If you haven't given in yet to the love for sweet-smelling things, you now have a major reason to do so.

Fragrances and scents can have a positive impact on our memory, especially on senior citizens, a new study has shown. In fact, burning the night diffuser and filling up the bedroom with some scintillating scents can lower the risk of dementia immensely.

How do scents help?

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Neurologically, scent triggers memories because the brain processes scent in the amygdala and hippocampus, the areas of emotional and episodic memories.

In a trial at the University of California, Irvine, neuroscientists found that senior citizens saw a jump in cognitive performance by 226 per cent after using fragrance diffusers in their bedrooms every night for two hours, reported Psychology Today.

They performed the trial on 43 adults aged between 60 and 85 with no prior diagnosis of cognitive impairment or dementia. The neuroscientists distributed commercially bought scent diffusers containing seven essential oil cartridges of rose, orange, eucalyptus, lemon, peppermint, rosemary, and lavender. 

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They gave 20 trial participants a full-strength fragrance cartridge. The other 23 received cartridges with only small amounts of odorant as a control group. The trial participants had to use a cartridge in the diffuser every night before sleeping to spread the scent as they slept. 

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According to the previous research, patients with dementia had improved memory and language skills when exposed to 40 odours twice daily. However, the researchers at California University Irvine designed the trial differently because they thought it was unrealistic to ask senior citizens with cognitive impairment to open, sniff, and close bottles 80 times daily. 

Cynthia Woo, the study's lead author, said, "That's why we reduced the number of scents to only seven, exposing participants to just one each time, rather than the multiple aromas used simultaneously in previous research projects." She added, "By making it possible for people to experience the odours while sleeping, we eliminated the need to set aside time for this during waking hours every day."

After six months, the research revealed that members of the scent-enriched group performed better than the control group in a word list test. The word list test evaluated verbal learning, retention, and recognition memory. Moreover, they reported having better sleep. 

Furthermore, MRI scans of the scent-enriched group revealed they had better integrity in the left uncinate fasciculus, a brain pathway connecting parts of the limbic system which weakens with age. 

Thus, the study established that scent can enhance memory power if used in a non-invasive intervention and prevent dementia in senior citizens.

(With inputs from agencies)