Odor recollection during slow-wave sleep enhances memory

Scientists studying how sleep affects memory have found that the whiff of a familiar scent can help a slumbering brain better remember things that it learned the evening before. The smell of roses — delivered to people’s nostrils as they studied and, later, as they slept — improved their performance on a memory test by about 13 percent.

The study’s results could eventually help doctors improve patients’ memory by devising treatments directed at deep sleep. As they age, people spend less and less time each night in such sleep, and existing sleep medications do not generally increase it. But pharmaceutical companies are investigating compounds that do so.

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