Roses can do more than charm your sweetheart. A recent study shows that the fragrance of roses can stimulate areas of the brain that has to do with learning and memory.

It is well known that our memories become stronger as we sleep. This study by the University of Lubeck, Germany, shows that smell can reinforce and strengthen the learning pathways of the brain.

Researchers in this study, asked their 74 volunteers to learn to play games in which they had to concentrate, where they had to find matched pair of objects on cards (placed face down), and flip just one card at a time. Some of these subjects were asked to inhale the smell of roses periodically during this task. The volunteers then were made to sleep in an MRI tube, where their brain activities could be mapped. As the subjects slept the researchers made sure that the same smell of roses was wafted into the area where some of the participants slept. The next day they were tested again on the same task. It was found that those who had experienced the odour, had 97.2% recollection of what they had learnt, whereas the ones who did not get the fragrance had 86% recollection.

The researchers, headed by Jan Born, pointed out that the part of the brain that was concerned with learning new activities, the hippocampus, got activated with the fragrance of the roses. He also added that this kind of memory improvement was seen only during the slow wave sleep and not during sleep which had Rapid eye movement (REM).

This is for those who are preparing for a major exam…Remember to smell the roses!

Source: magnamags