Emotion Makes Nose a Sharper Smeller

hodge · #1 31-03-2008, 01:40 AM

There's an article in the current Time magazine online about a study on the relationship between smells and emotions. It mentions that this has ramifications for PTSD. It's an interesting confirmation for those of us who've had smell-induced anxiety/flashbacks/etc.

The article can be found by looking up time.com. There's also a link to the article at the CNN website under their Heath section, at least as of today.

kers · #2 31-03-2008, 02:20 AM

Hodge alerted me to this article and I found it really interesting. The most intriguing part to me was that in trials, people could identify the "real" smell among "mirror" smells if they were first exposed to it in emotionally charged situations (electric shocks). So often I am confused that I get flashbacks from a certain kind of smell, but not similar ones. This explains, perhaps, why. And it makes me feel less strange about being so sensitive to certain smells! It's a documented phenomena.