OUR Yaniv Mom he holds a small container of cigarette butts right under my nose. “I guess you don’t like the smell, do you?” he asks, watching me fidget. Then he waves a small white wand next to my face. “Now sniff the marijuana again,” he tells me, adding, “How do you feel?”

The smell of cigarettes was gone, no matter how hard I tried, no matter how close to the ashtray I stuck my nose. This result is due to technology developed by the Israeli company Moodify. Their technique includes activation of olfactory bulb receptors, the part of the brain that processes smells.

“It turns out that the sense of smell has its own chip spectrum [όπως αυτό το κομμάτι του φάσματος του φωτός που είναι ορατό στους ανθρώπους]. If the chemical odor molecules can be evenly distributed, then bad odor can be controlled and the sensation of a bad previous mixture can be alleviated,” explains Mr. Mama, founder and head of the technology company in question.

Among other products, Moodify also sells a pendant that sits next to the litter box and eliminates unwanted odors.

“In Israel, we realized that because rental apartments tend to be small, with less space outside, and with a trash can often found in the living room, people were almost desperate to find a solution,” says Mr. n Mom.

As more and more of us spend more and more time working from home, he says, it’s no wonder we pay a lot of attention to how our home smells. In the UK, The White Company is seeing an increase in scented candle sales, which it says is due to an increase in work from home.

“Fragrance is something completely personal and we all have different tastes. In any case, smell can really change the “feel” of a room and therefore how we feel when we enter it,” says Chrissy Rucker, founder of The White Company.

According to her, there is evidence that the “right” smell not only makes the environment more pleasant, but also stimulates our brain. Mark Moss, chair of psychology at Northumbria University, has studied the effects of essential oils on brain function. One of his major discoveries is that the scent of rosemary can improve human memory.

“My research shows that sage and peppermint have beneficial effects on cognitive function. On the contrary, and comparing its action with other oils, we found that lavender tends to impair memory and slow reflexes. However, other studies have shown that lavender is very helpful in reducing anxiety before dental and other medical treatments..

Dr. Moss also emphasizes the important place that olfactory receptors occupy in our brain.

As he explains, the olfactory bulb can make more projections to many more structures in the human brain than vision or hearing. “This shows how important the sense of smell was in the evolution of the human species.He notes and continues: “Most of the influence of smells on our behavior is unconscious. We don’t actively process the information we have, especially for “low-level” flavors. We consciously process only strong enough odors.”

Based on over a decade of research at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, Moodify is currently developing fragrances that enable people to improve their performance, well-being and sense of security. Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science have found, for example, that skydivers give off a scent of fear before jumping into space. Therefore, scientists reproduce this “smell”, noting that it can help people become more alert.

Although there is no distinct… smell of fear, olfactory receptors can detect volatile molecules in sweat associated with stressful situations. It is these molecules that scientists are working on.

“All this has the potential to improve the cognitive and psychological abilities of people,” says Mr. Mama, while dr. This highlights for me how important it is to learn even more about how smells affect us.

“Smell is perhaps the least understood of all the senses, because it has evolved to overtake sight and hearing in terms of human behavior,” he notes, and goes on to explain: “To some extent, smell is considered a vestige of our evolutionary development.” past, and not something that still has significant value. It is only when we lose it that we begin to consider it important. In fact, its interaction with our brain is very complex.”

“Losing your sense of smell can be very frustrating,” she agrees. Cleo Maniatisa chemical engineer and perfumer who has been a consultant for Moodify.

As she says: “Keep in mind that the sense of smell is the first sense that a baby can use immediately after birth, as well as the main way to connect with a new environment. By smell, we recognize our caregivers at an early age, and later use this sense as a social tool.

»People who have lost their sense of smell often report a fear of socializing because they constantly have the thought that they might smell bad and not be aware of it. They also often try to avoid restaurants because they cannot enjoy food. This makes them less open to making close connections with other people.”

Back at the lab, Yaniv Mama says that the future of creating fragrances to improve our lives has limitless possibilities.

As he predicts, “Personalized” smells like our favorite scented candle, freshly baked bread or freshly cut grass, even the smell of a newborn baby can be transmitted to us through an app or TV screen.

Source: BBC