Take a deep breath. Chances are, you don’t smell anything at all. In our modern, industrialized society, we’ve eliminated most natural odors. While this helps in avoiding unpleasant smells like body odor and decay, the absence of scents is detrimental to our brains.
It turns out, scents play a crucial role in memory formation and retention. When we lose our sense of smell, the brain’s memory centers begin to weaken. If the olfactory system isn’t regularly stimulated, it deteriorates—much like an unused muscle. In fact, the earliest symptom of Alzheimer’s disease is a diminished sense of smell.
This led Michael Leon, professor emeritus of neurobiology and behavior at the UC Irvine Charlie Dunlop School of Biological Sciences, to wonder: if a lack of olfactory stimulation impaired memory, could increasing olfactory stimulation improve it? His research says yes.
Leon’s recent study exposed adults aged 60 to 85 to various scents each night for four months. The results were stunning. Participants’ short-term memory retention improved by a whopping 226% compared to a control group. Olfactory enrichment, or exposure to a range of scents, functions like physical therapy for the brain.
“As far as we know, this is the largest memory improvement in healthy adults ever reported,” says Leon.
A similar study involving people with dementia found up to a 300% improvement in their memory across standard tests.
“This is the most effective treatment for dementia and Alzheimer’s disease by a mile. Nothing else comes close,” Leon added.
“As far as we know, this is the largest memory improvement in healthy adults ever reported”
– Michael Leon, Chief Scientific Officer, Memory Air
From Research to Reality
While the results of Leon’s study are extraordinary, exposing oneself to 40 scents twice a day isn’t practical. To bridge this gap, Leon partnered with Alan Bernstein, an experienced entrepreneur in the healthcare world, to create Memory Air®, the branded device from their startup Science Lab 3. Memory Air is dedicated to bringing Leon’s research to life.
After patenting the science through UC Irvine’s Beall Applied Innovation, Memory Air’s goal was to develop a prototype that could automate scent exposure. The device itself needed to be simple and effective. To trigger the right response in your brain, each scent has to be perceived distinctly. The scents can’t be released too closely, or they’ll be blended into a scent “soup,” rendering the therapy ineffective. To solve this problem, they teamed up with Spanner, a Silicon Valley engineering firm, to design a rotating belt of individual scent pods, each heated and expressed in sequence.
The Memory Air team was very conscious of keeping their device as streamlined as possible to ensure 100% user compliance. For this reason, Memory Air is equipped with a single button. You can turn it on and forget it.
Like in any startup, Science Lab 3 needed to find the right partners to succeed. After initial false starts, Spanner proved to be the design and engineering partner that could turn Memory Air into a practical, user-friendly device. The search for a manufacturer was equally challenging, but they eventually found two partners that aligned with their vision.
“It all took time. You have to trust the people you’re dealing with. They have to run trials. Sometimes they get it, and sometimes they don’t,” says Bernstein.
Memory Air has chosen to grow without venture capital, which Bernstein says allows for smoother operations.
“It makes things go faster, easier, and cleaner,” he explains.
Rethinking Cognitive Treatment Options
Memory Air is set to fill a big need in the world of cognitive decline, where treatment options are scarce. Exercise and diet are effective but are notoriously hard for people to maintain long-term. The brain game industry received traction for a while but failed due to low engagement. Supplements help with focus and attention for a short period of time (much like a cup of coffee), but they don’t improve memory. Prescription drugs often come with severe side effects, like brain bleeds, inflammation, and shrinkage, and they only slow decline—they don’t stop or reverse it.
Leon and his team have tapped into the phenomenon of cognitive reserve, or the brain’s ability to adapt to damage through alternative pathways. Cognitive reserve is built over a lifetime of activities that stimulate the brain. Education, challenging work, social interactions, and complex hobbies all contribute to build this reserve. Remarkably, some people with Alzheimer’s and high cognitive reserve show no signs of memory loss.
Memory Air aims to boost cognitive reserve by mimicking intellectual stimulation through olfactory stimulation. Unlike aromatherapy, which uses single, repetitive scents, olfactory enrichment relies on a large number of novel, daily, rotating odors to engage the brain’s memory centers.
The reason why olfactory stimulation is particularly effective is that our sense of smell has direct access to the hippocampus and surrounding regions of the brain associated with memory. Your sense of smell has access to a “superhighway” to the brain while your other senses take “side streets.” This may explain why a loss of smell can signal the start of memory decline.
Why Pleasant Scents Matter
This unique pathway not only impacts memory but also influences the body’s inflammatory response. Enjoyable scents can reduce inflammation, while unpleasant ones trigger it as the body braces for potential harm. This discovery suggests that olfactory enrichment might do more than boost memory—it could help mitigate inflammation linked to numerous diseases.
Leon, along with colleagues Cynthia Woo and Emily Troscianko, conducted an extensive review of existing research and found 139 medical conditions associated with both smell loss and inflammation. The list ranges from Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s to heart disease and depression. Some connections, like those with COVID-19 and rhinitis, have substantial research backing. This insight points to the potential of smell as an early warning system for health risks and the preventive power of Memory Air.
“We can’t address all 139 conditions, but in some, like heart disease, olfactory loss appears long before other symptoms. If olfactory stimulation can help people avoid heart disease, that would be incredible,” says Leon.
Applying the Science
While Leon has spent a career studying the brain and olfaction, it wasn’t until fifteen years ago that he shifted from basic research to real-world application. Back then, Leon had spent years studying how rats identify odors. While he found the work fascinating, he realized it wasn’t particularly useful. So, he considered how he could apply his expertise to address a societal problem.
Inspired by a friend’s suggestion that environmental enrichment could help children with autism, Leon conducted trials and saw dramatic results. Once he achieved great outcomes with children with autism, Leon was inspired to expand his research even more.
“This whole world opened up to me. Once you see a child dramatically improve over the course of a few months, it’s really hard to go back to dealing with mice and rats,” Leon says.
Leon’s work has earned him recognition. In a recent analysis from Stanford University School of Medicine, he’s ranked in the top 2% of scientists globally for research impact by the number of citations. Plus, he’s among a select few who have dedicated their careers to understanding how smell and cognition are linked.
Scaling Up for Impact
As Science Lab 3 prepares to scale up Memory Air, their focus remains on strengthening core operations like supply chain and finance while outsourcing other functions to trusted vendors. The team is also looking to build a robust marketing arm.
“Our foundation is science, but we need to build a large marketing organization around it. If we can’t get the word out, the science will just sit there,” says Bernstein.
The public’s interest is already piqued. Memory Air has been featured in over 200 media stories and the original paper has amassed 376,000 views. And with over a billion people worldwide over the age of 60, the demand for effective cognitive health therapy will only grow.
Memory Air is set to make a significant impact. Its science-backed, effortless approach makes it a potential game-changer in cognitive health. With the launch on the horizon, it’s set to prove that sometimes, the simplest solutions—like stopping to smell the roses—can be the most powerful.
Learn more at: www.memoryair.com