Perfume ads promise a lot—sex, power, mystery—but “brain enlargement” has never been one of them. Yet Japanese researchers just found that a steady dose of rose essential oil could actually bulk up the brain.
In the study, 28 women applied rose oil to their clothes daily for a month, while 22 others sprayed plain water. After four weeks, MRI scans revealed that the rose group had more gray matter in a region associated with memory and learning. The results, published in Physiology & Behavior, make this the first study to show that long-term scent exposure can physically change brain structure.
“This study is the first to show that continuous scent inhalation changes brain structure,” the authors explained, which is science’s way of saying that smelling things can remodel your brain.
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The growth appeared in the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), an area that tends to shrink in people with Alzheimer’s disease. If scent can stimulate the PCC, it could become a low-cost way to keep memory centers active. The researchers even suggest rose oil might help prevent dementia.
Other regions were less impressed. The amygdala, which processes emotion, and the orbitofrontal cortex, which handles pleasant odors, barely shifted. No one is entirely sure why the PCC changed so much. It may have been storing odor memories on repeat, or the brain may have disliked smelling roses every day and worked harder to regulate that reaction. Both explanations are equally weird.
It’s also worth remembering that the sample size was small, and all participants were women in their twenties. Whether the effect holds up across larger, more diverse groups is still an open question. The study does, however, build on past research showing that smell is uniquely tied to memory. If you’ve ever been transported back to childhood by the scent of sunscreen or your grandmother’s cooking, you already know how powerful odor can be.
Either way, four weeks of smelling the same perfume left a visible mark on brain scans. That doesn’t mean you’ll suddenly recall every password you’ve ever set, but it does suggest a new approach to influencing brain plasticity without high-tech treatments.
So the next time someone drenches themselves in floral body spray, it might be annoying in the elevator. It also might be giving their brain a boost.
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