Human Senses 1. Smell and Taste (18 of 21)

Human Senses

At the University of California they're studying how we each develop powerful reactions to certain smells.
Ok Nigel actually we're looking at your brain now as we speak and your brain looks just fine.
l'm glad l've got a good-looking brain.
Noam Sobel and his team are using a MRl scanner to see what happens in my brain.
We'll be starting up our machine er right now.
When we smell something the nerve signals from the nose travel to 2 different areas of the brain.
The signals travel up to the frontal lobe, which works out what the smell is.
But they also get sent to a set of structures called the limbic system.
The part of the brain where we store memories of any intense emotions we've had smelling that smell.

So the smell triggers a strong feeling based on our previous experiences.
Fear is one type of response that we se here.
Disgust is of course another type of response that we commonly see here to odours.
And we can all be er quite familiar with that.
Urgh, that is obnoxious.
Smells make us feel good or bad according to our own personal experiences of that smell, whether nice or nasty.
Oor that's a nice one.
It reminds me of chasing butterflies in flower filled meadows in the summer.
Particular smells can trigger amazingly specific memories, which effect how we feel about that smell.
l was invited to a garden party at Buckingham place.
l took my mother along as my guest.
And as we walked in to the gardens, the smell of that cut grass took me back to when l was about 5 years old.