People with good spatial memory are good at sense of smell

People with good spatial memory are better at recognizing smells than those with poor navigation skills.

This connection is really significant, researchers at McGill University argue that, because animals develop an important sense of smell to aid navigation. Most species rely on their sensory system to track their prey. Smell also helps some animals find partners.

However, for modern people, the sense of smell system is much less important for human ancestors and species with distant families. Scientists are skeptical that there may be a correlation here.

For modern people, the sense of smell system is much less important for species with distant families.

The researchers designed a series of experiments to test participants' spatial memory and sense of smell . In one experiment, participants had to explore a virtual city, walk along each road and walk through 20 city landmarks. After that, participants were asked about the fastest routes between different places. In a second test, participants were asked to identify different odors.

After completing the tests, participants allowed observers to visualize their brains. The MRI structure results showed that participants who performed better on both tests had a larger hippocampus area on the right brain and a mediated cortex or thicker mOFC .

Previous studies have shown that hippocampus controls long-term memory, while mOFC is very important for the olfactory system.

Louisa Dahmani, now a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University, said: 'We are not sure, that we find that people who are good at smell will also be good at determining the direction. Therefore, the above result is really a surprise. "

In a separate experiment, scientists invited participants who experienced a brain injury to damage the medial cortex. Tests show that brain injuries lead to reduced sense of smell and ability to remember space.

Research - published in Nature Communications. This is the first publication of the week as well as the first discovery of the link between the medial cortex and the spatial memory.