In this number
In Wretched, the young Marius seeks to identify the writing of a letter. The name of its author eludes him, until he lifts the letter to his nostrils and smells tobacco. Immediately, everything comes back to him. “The sense of smell, that mysterious memory aid, had just revived a whole world in him,” wrote Victor Hugo, more than half a century before Proust and his famous madeleine.
The children in the “olfactory” crèches described by the neuroscientist Roland Salesse in this dossier do not act any differently: they memorize animal names by breathing in capsules containing their scent. The brain remembers it better!
Everyone in neuroscience and psychology is experiencing a small revolution: from a forgotten sense, often treated with condescension, the sense of smell is becoming the hub of emotions, memory and cognition. It unifies the representation of time, space and affect. Enough to make it the center of this dossier, where we also discover how “super-noses” detect certain diseases such as Parkinson’s, and how “electronic noses” might restore the sense of smell to those who have lost it, by example following a Covid infection.
