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Washington DC [USA] Oct 20 (ANI): According to a recent study, people with improved spatial memory are also more apt at identifying odors.
The study published in the journal Nature Communications is based on a recent theory. the main reason for the evolution of the sense of smell was navigation, as most animals relied mainly on smell to find food and avoid predators.
The McGill research team, led by Véronique Bohbot of the Department of Psychiatry at McGill University and the Douglas Mental Health University Institute, has hypothesized that it is in danger. was so, there would be a close connection between navigation and the olfaction.
The researchers were able to demonstrate, for the first time, that similar regions of the brain very different activities. They also discovered that the medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC), known for its involvement in olfaction, was also essential to spatial memory.
To test the correlation between spatial memory and the sense of smell, 57 participants were asked to do so. a couple of different tasks related to spatial memory. In one of them, they were given about 20 minutes to explore a virtual city, crossing each street and pbading in front of key landmarks (schools, swimming pool and shops).
They were then asked to find direct routes between certain landmarks. Participants were then asked to identify 40 different smells, ranging from basil to strawberry to cinnamon.
Researchers used a structural MRI to examine various regions of the brain known for their badociation with olfaction and spatial memory. both in space navigation and in odor recognition, there was a tendency to have a larger right hippocampus (a region of the brain known to be involved in long-term memory) and a thicker left MFC.
Since the mofc, he was known to be critical for the olfaction. , had not yet been badociated with space navigation, the researchers then confirmed their findings through another experiment involving nine people with lesions in this area of the brain. They found that patients with MOPO lesions had olfactory and spatial memory deficits, while patients with lesions elsewhere in the brain did not have these deficits.
"We were not sure, on entering, that Better People identify odor would also facilitate navigation," says Louisa Dahmani, who did the research during her PhD at McGill University. and who is currently doing a post-doctorate at Harvard. "The results were therefore a real surprise."
Véronique Bohbot, the main author, adds: "The fact that both functions seem to support similar brain regions supports the idea that brain systems evolve at the same time. same time – although this is a theory, rather than anything we wanted to show in this article. All we can say is that we now know a little more about the brain systems involved in both navigation and olfaction. "(ANI)
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